


Ouroboros

by alatarmaia4



Series: Legendary [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Multi, hell yeah i'm back with a new installment of this story, im on my own plotwise so no more rapid-fire chapter posting, this one has less princess bride because william goldman never got around to writing the fake sequel, you know the drill so many characters not enough space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 16:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11627820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alatarmaia4/pseuds/alatarmaia4
Summary: Barry, Lup, and company may have been swept off to a happy ending, but there's more that lies in wait for them. As the rebels and accidental rebels split up to reach their respective destinations, they each find more troubles than they had expected. Neverwinter is plagued with political uncertainty, friends and allies go missing, and to top it all off, news of a strange new ship and its fearsome pirate crew has surfaced...and they're not content to let Lup keep the title of 'Dread' to herself for long.





	1. Return to the Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am SWEPT AWAY by the outpouring of love Phoenix Flame got. How could I resist writing a sequel? I left so many things unknown, and so many beloved NPCs unused! What happened to Maureen and Lucas? Do they ever make it back to Lup's ship? Does Lup stop being the Dread Pirate Roberts or what? What about [insert your favorite character that didn't make an appearance here]?
> 
> Wonder no longer!

_ Ditto, _

__ _ Found these old notebooks! They’re in pretty good condition - magic’s probably in play here like with the rest of them and almost everything else in the place. Whoever this house belonged to had a whole trove of nearly identical notebooks. All handwritten and filled as far as I can tell. I’m sending you the coolest one I found. We’re probably going to need a truck to get all of them out of here, forget about literally anything else. _

__ _ Honestly it’s a miracle anything in this house is as well-preserved as it is. This being-a-historian thing is harder than it looks. Luckily I don’t have to do it alone! Apparently it’s “an amazing preservation of not only architectural style in the ‘legendary’ period of this region of Faerûn, but an incredible look into the life of the owner during the same time’. I don’t think I totally get how awesome this all is, but it looks super cool. _

__ _ Anyway. Notebooks. I read through this all in one night, I can tell you’re gonna love it. Most of these notebooks seem to be stories, but it looks like this one is part of a series that was dictated to the author or something? How crazy is that that it might be true? The resident historian says not to get my hopes up but unless this is a really weird writing style test, it seems pretty real to me. Truth is stranger than fiction, right? _

__ _ Let me know what you think! _

* * *

__

A little before sunrise, when everyone except the drivers was dead asleep, Lup shuddered convulsively and then was still.

It was enough to wake Barry, who she was still leaning against. He blinked muzzily, trying to figure out what had woken him. For a moment he stared through the window of the battlewagon, watching the road fall away beside them, in confusion; and then all the events of the previous day crashed down upon him, and he remembered that it was Lup leaning on him and Killian he was squished up against on his other side. The battlewagon was still rumbling underneath him, and outside the sky was beginning to turn orange along the horizon. 

Barry stared out at the view for a little while, still drowsy and comfortable. As the battlewagon, still rumbling, jolted over a bump in the road, Lup was jostled off his shoulder and slumped over. Strangely, that didn’t wake her up.

“Hey, Lup.” Barry kept his voice low; everyone but Hurley looked to be asleep. He pulled Lup back upright, keeping his arm around her shoulders. That didn’t wake her up, either; she had to be exhausted.

“Lup,” Barry whispered a little louder, shaking her gently. She’d like seeing the sunrise. But that still didn’t work. “Lup? C’mon, wake up.”

The next second, he said, “Hurley. Hurley, stop, something’s wrong.”

* * *

__

Sloane, driving the sleeker battlewagon, almost missed the movement reflected in her mirror. In the seat next to hers, Carey was curled up in a ball and occasionally sending sparks flying as she snored; in the backseat, Julia and Magnus were leaning up against each other, with Merle sleeping like a log and using the door as a pillow. But none of them were the ones who had moved. Behind her, Hurley’s battlewagon had turned off the road and come to a halt on the grass.

Sloane pulled over sharply, making Carey knock against the door. She woke up with a sputter, but Sloane was already unbuckling herself. She stood up and poked her head through the sunroof.

“What happened?” She called over to Hurley. Though it was dark, she could see Hurley looked tense. There was a lot of movement going on in the other wagon’s backseat.

“Get Merle!” Hurley said. “There’s something wrong with Lup.”

* * *

__

Anyone coming from either direction along the road would have encountered a strange sight. Everyone who had traveled with Sloane had piled out of her battlewagon to cluster around the door of Hurley’s, and the sleek one stood functionally abandoned while the roughshod one still rumbled from the force of the engine. Magnus was tapping nervously on the side of it, and Killian had gone to sit on the roof again to give Merle room to make his examination. Even Captain Bane had turned to watch from the front seat.

“You didn’t see anything happen?” Merle pressed Barry again.

“No, I was asleep!” Lup had been shifted to Barry’s other side, but he still had one arm around her. “You don’t think-”

“She’s not dead,” Merle said with confidence. Lup had finally woken up while she was being shuffled around to be closer to the door, to everyone’s relief. All she had done so far was open her eyes and mutter a few things. She was watching the proceedings (mostly Merle) through half-lidded eyes, seemingly still exhausted. This was especially worrying when everyone remembered that elves didn’t sleep. Merle addressed the next question to her. “Which is easier, nodding or saying yes? Just do whichever one it is.”

“Yes,” Lup mumbled. Merle nodded authoritatively.

“Moving the jaw and tongue is easier than the whole head. As I thought.”

“But nothing could have happened,” Julia said. She looked genuinely worried for Lup, despite having met her for only a few minutes, which was a testament to her character.

“Well, no,” Merle said. “But the resurrection pill was only good for twenty-four hours, and you gave it to her around sunrise yesterday-”

“The what?” Several people said at once. Magnus and Taako exchanged a significant look.

“So?” Taako pressed. He was clutching his knees in a white-knuckled grip.

“I told you, she’s not dead,  _ or  _ going to die.” Merle rolled his eyes and spoke to Lup again. “I warned you about this, remember? After the pill runs out, and now it has, it’s gonna take a while for you to get back to normal. You could barely walk even  _ with  _ the pill’s help.”

Lup’s forehead creased, which was (unknown to everyone else) a spirited attempt at an annoyed scowl. “So?” Her voice was still fainter than normal.

“Give it a couple months, maybe-”

“Months?” Barry repeated in shock.

“You think people come back from the dead every day?” Merle demanded. “Twenty-four hours before the pill ran out was a  _ miracle,  _ let me tell you. You’re all just going to have to live with the fallout.” 

“So,” Sloane said into the ensuing silence, “what’s this about resurrection?”

* * *

__

Eventually, as Magnus in a low voice gave a very brief summary of why they’d brought Lup into Merle’s care, everyone split back up into the battlewagons to continue their journey. In Hurley’s, everyone rearranged themselves so that Lup could lie down across the seats, her head in Taako’s lap. Taako kept compulsively fiddling with her hair, braiding and then unbraiding tiny bits of it. 

Lup, though she  _ was  _ still tired, forced herself to stay awake. She kept her eyes glued on the sky she could see outside the window, on the feeling of Taako’s hands in her hair, on the blunt jab of the umbrastaff into her side. Anything to keep from falling asleep again.

It had been a struggle to wake up. A slow process. Barry had sounded frightened, like he thought he was losing her again. And it had been...

Dreamless. It had been dreamless. She didn’t want to fall asleep and fade into black. It was nothing like dying; it was not painful. What it was was dark, and full of nothing at all, and that was what she was afraid of returning to.

When they came to the end of their journey, with a final large rumble from the battlewagons, the morning was just beginning to properly start. The assorted rebels and company went or were helped inside the large manor house they had stopped at. It was nestled into the side of a forested hill, up a winding road that occasionally tilted alarmingly, and was well-hidden behind the trees.

“What is this place?” Magnus asked, stopping inside the foyer to gaze up at the soaring ceiling.

“It’s where we kept Artemis - uh, Lord Sterling,” Julia said. “It used to be some private vacation house of sorts while his family was still in power. Of course the Kalens never knew about it or used it, so it was very nice, though a bit much to deal with when we needed to clean. Lucky magic exists, right?”

“Yeah,” Magnus said absently. “This is a  _ really  _ nice house.”

“For now, it’s our house, too.”

There were many empty rooms, not to mention bedrooms, though the latter were quickly laid claim to. No one seemed very eager to do much of anything after their long journey; Hurley and Sloane in particular fell into bed together and were immediately asleep. The morning, and well into the afternoon, was quiet, disrupted only by the shuffle of someone exploring or going looking for food. 

Lup hated it. The house began to seem echoing and empty without enough people to fill it, and she had to ask Taako or Barry for help if she wanted to do anything. Neither of them wanted to let her out of sight, much less get very far away from her, and that got stifling fast. She had spent the last few years, and before that, a self-determined woman with very few people willing to say no to her outside of extreme circumstances; now they wanted to do everything for her instead of allowing her to even  _ try  _ to move. 

Lup sent them both off in a fit of frustration to  _ go away and find me a crutch or something.  _ She could talk, even if she couldn’t do anything else. By the time they reconvened for dinner, she’d worked her way up to yelling and propping herself up on her elbows, and dragging herself along with actual crutches that some probably long-dead lord had left in a closet. 

To sum up: it was terrible. Nothing about the situation was good at all. Lup dragged herself through hallways with a stormy expression until she got the hang of the crutches, though her arms shook the whole time. Her expression only got stormier when she had to be helped down the stairs to get to dinner.

“Just as a warning,” Hurley said, over the meal that Julia and Avi and Magnus had put together, “Sloane and I have got to get back to Goldcliff pretty soon, so if anyone’s driving with us that’s where we’re going. We’ve definitively gotten away, it seems like, and Captain Bane wants to get back home as soon as he can.”

“Understandable,” Julia replied, nodding. Lup was pretty sure she and Magnus were holding hands under the table. “We should sort out what everybody’s doing, then. You’re all welcome to stay as long as you like, unless Artemis remembers he owns this place and kicks you out.”

“Would he?” Magnus asked through a mouthful of bread.

“I don’t think so; he grew up here, but if he’s smart he won’t leave Neverwinter for a long while.”

“I think I’m going to return to Neverwinter, actually,” Avi said. “Artemis will need the help; and with all due respect, Julia, you should go back too. You’ve been leading this rebellion for over a decade. It may not be much of a  _ rebellion _ anymore, but he could still use your help.” 

Julia paused mid-bite, and then put her fork down. She looked conflicted. “I don’t know - Artemis is pretty capable.”

“Every time you’ve seen him be capable, he’s had you,” Avi pointed out.

“I’m up for going back with you,” Magnus offered. “I don’t care where you go.”

“That’s sweet,” Julia said affectionately. “But we don’t all need to decide where we go tonight.”

“I’m going back to my ship,” Lup said abruptly, before anybody could think to tell her otherwise.

Several people exchanged quizzical looks. Those in the know of what Lup had been doing for the last few years reacted differently.

_ “Now?”  _ Barry asked, startled. “But-”

“But what?” Lup demanded. 

“Lup, I feel like that’s gonna be a lot of work,” Taako said. “You’re still-”

It took most of Lup’s strength to slam her fist down on the table, but nobody else needed to know that. Cups and cutlery jumped, and the rest of the table froze, watching her carefully.

“It is  _ my  _ ship and  _ my  _ life,” Lup snapped. “I’m not a child or an idiot just because I need your help for other things! I’m going back and you can come with me or not.”

“I’m just worried,” Barry said quietly, once it became obvious that someone was going to have to say something.

“You can be worried on my ship, too.” Lup slumped back in her chair. “Can’t the rest of you talk amongst yourselves or something?”

“You’re a very loud person,” Merle said, and then turned to Avi and said, “How come you didn’t put any milk on the table?”

While more and more people gradually were drawn into the rapidly-developing argument over whether milk and meat a) could be eaten together or b)  _ should _ be _ ,  _ Barry leaned in closer to Lup.

“You said you didn’t like being Roberts,” he said in an undertone. He could see Taako’s ears twitch, and realized with resignation that he was probably listening in. “Why go back?”

“Where else am I gonna go?” Lup hissed back. “It’s still my ship. We had an awesome adventure and won, but that doesn’t mean I can ditch everything else.”

“Are you gonna be happy with that?”

“I’ll be happy when I can stop using these crutches,” Lup said, and refused to let the conversation progress further.

* * *

__

The group that had arrived to the manor left it in bits and pieces over the following month. Julia, Magnus, and Avi set off first after only a few days, back towards Neverwinter. Surprisingly, Merle went with them, claiming that he needed to let his family know how things had gone. Most of his companions suspected that he really wanted to see if his old position as resident Miracle Man was still available. 

A few days later, Hurley and Sloane drove off with Bane early in the morning along the road to Goldcliff. Carey woke up in time to see them off, as she and Killian spent much of their time with the other two women. After their departure, Carey often took her girlfriend out into the forest, either to make out privately or to practice various fighting and climbing techniques, or perhaps both.

Lup slept (or at least rested in the manner of elves) a great deal as she recovered her strength in the aftermath of her death and resurrection, and so she stayed the longest. When she wasn’t asleep or eating, she often roamed through the halls and rooms of the house with either Taako or Barry as accompaniment, trying to get her strength back to normal. It was a difficult process; she had very little energy and had to take frequent breaks, and sometimes she would be overcome with fits of shuddering and had to sit down and let them pass before she could do anything else. Sometimes she would lose interest in even trying, and lie in bed for ages without doing anything at all before someone realized what was going on and either got her up or got her angry enough that she went off to do something herself out of spite.

There were ups and downs, and some quite terrible days, and once she and Barry had a furious fight, though they made up quickly the next morning. Almost three weeks later, boredom finally overpowered her desire to be stronger for when she finally reunited with her crew, and so Lup struck out for Rockport, where the  _ Revenge _ was sure to be docked.

She did not go alone. Taako and Barry of course went with her; and surprisingly, Carey and Killian asked to come along as well, in lieu of other plans. The pair found news of a wagon train going from the nearby village to Rockport and obtained passage, and so the five of them were able to travel in (crowded) comfort.

Lup spent most of the initial journey in a meditative doze, leaning against Taako’s shoulder, but Barry was watching the scenery roll past. It reminded him of his journeys the year before - had it been even a year? He’d journeyed for two whole years after he’d been told Lup was dead, and spent barely two months with Kalen. And now he was traveling again, with a destination of a pirate ship. 

Barry hardly knew what to expect from pirates. He’d heard tales, but how much of them were true if there had been four different Robertses? The ship  _ Revenge  _ had never been described much in the stories. And what of the crew? What kind of people had Lup worked with? He only knew of whichever one had taught her how to make the umbrastaff, and he hadn’t even been told their name.

The view changed slowly from rolling fields to scrubby brushland scattered with trees. The wagon stopped for the evening at an inn, where Lup walked the short distance inside by herself (with the crutches) and was in a cheerful mood for the rest of the night. Taako enthusiastically regaled her with critiques of the food they were given, which Barry thought was better than he’d expected, and Lup laughed for the first time in weeks.

As night drew in closer, a few people tried to toss around threatening stories of monsters in the Felicity Wilds, which their collective path would soon pass through. With the cheerful atmosphere inside the inn, though, nobody wanted to hear about such things. They turned instead to drinking songs and games and far-fetched stories about things they had supposedly done. 

One man declared that he had once seen a dragon and escaped with his life, while another told tales of an invisible town that could not be entered by any regular or magical means. Lup and Barry exchanged a look, and both of them knew that they were thinking the same thing: if they told their own story now, nobody in the inn would believe them.

“I know what’s a good story,” Killian said, slightly tipsy, when the dinner had gone on  _ very  _ late and at least half the other travelers had retreated to their rooms for the night. “Why’s this inn called the Burned Crown? Kind of a weird name.”

“Oh, I know that one!” The young woman who had been serving them, Hathaway, brightened. “It’s some old story about how there used to be a kingdom where the Felicity Wilds are now. Legend says the kingdom was driven into ruin - you know, terrible rulers, plague, the whole shebang. But there was some big fight or disaster that went down right at the end, ruined the whole place. So that’s why the Felicity Wilds are so crazy and full of monsters, because there’s all sorts of old magic that’s been leaking everywhere and getting into the flora and fauna for ages.”

“Huh,” Taako said. “Well, I’ll trade monsters and magic for this frankly impressive dinner, honestly-” Barry tuned Taako’s excessive compliments out, glancing instead towards one of the windows. It was well-lit inside, and outside night had very thoroughly fallen over every inch of the land. There appeared to be a pitch-black curtain drawn over the window from the outside, and nothing could be seen. 

Outside, the Felicity Wilds rustled, only a few miles away.

* * *

__

Their actual trip through the Felicity Wilds was uneventful, if much quieter than usual. Lup was awake for most of it, which was another change. Everyone seemed ready to be attacked at any moment, but the worst that happened was some far-off roaring that had every passenger silently panicking about dragons and chimeras. 

As they passed the border, the wild undergrowth and thick, tall trees began to grow smaller with distance. Barry turned to watch it recede behind them until it had all but vanished on the horizon. Carey’s tail didn’t stop thrashing until every bit of it was completely out of sight.

They were still nowhere near Rockport; it was another two night's rest in tiny inns before the wagon began to draw close to the city. As it did, the land grew more tame. Occasional flashes of railroad tracks began to appear on either side of the wagon, and a traveler or two would be passed from time to time, all going in the same direction. 

Rockport itself seemed to grow slowly out of the far horizon. The tallest buildings reached up towards the sky, and a haze of urban development unfolded from their base. Most excitingly, a train passed on its way out of the city with a clamor of machinery, trailing a wide plume of black smoke. A small boy stood up to lean dangerously over the side and watch it pass. 

Barry felt, suddenly, Lup’s hand tight around his wrist.

“Lucas,” she said. “Lucas made machines - Miller machinery, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Barry said, surprised. Trains and railroads were very new, and at the moment only operated out of Rockport, but they were known of far and wide. He hadn’t until that exact moment connected Lucas Miller with Lucas, former Dread Pirate Roberts. “I thought you said he retired?”

“His mother made Miller machinery originally,” Lup said. “I guess he went to help her after he left me in charge.” She brooded silently. Barry nudged her.

“Got something to say?”

“Just wondering what happened to him,” Lup said. “It’s nothing.” And she leaned against Barry’s shoulder, closing her eyes and appearing to go to sleep.

When they stopped for good in Rockport, however, Lup awoke quickly without care for keeping up the ruse of sleep. Since none of them had anything other than what they’d fled Neverwinter with, all she had to do was scootch off the back of the wagon and swing her crutches into place; all Taako and Barry could do was scramble after her, Carey and Killian in tow.

“Before we get there,” Killian said loudly, making Lup pause and look over her shoulder as they caught up, “I’m not super interested in being a pirate. Not really my style.”

“I get seasick,” Carey helpfully added. “I’m not meant to live in water.”

“Oh.” Lup looked disappointed. “That’s fair, I guess. We could have used the crew, but we can always hire other people.”

“Good, then it’s settled.” Killian nodded firmly. Lup nodded back. “Carey and I’ll leave you here. But first - Barry, can I talk to you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Barry said, a little surprised. Killian took him firmly by the shoulder and steered him a good distance away from the group, under the wooden overhang of a store. “What’s this about?”

“You sure you want to do this?” Killian asked. “I mean, dude, she called herself the Dread Pirate Roberts.”

“I  _ know  _ about that.”

“And you know what you’re getting into?”

“What do you mean?” Barry frowned at her. “I thought you’d be happy for me. She’s hardly Kalen.”

“And she’s a  _ pirate.  _ You’re going with her to a pirate ship to do who-knows-what. I know for a fact you’ve heard of what Roberts gets up to-”

“Lup’s not like that,” Barry interrupted impatiently. “And right now she’s hardly up for raiding and plundering.”

“I’m just saying, Barry.” Killian’s mouth was set in a tight line around her protruding teeth. “Are you gonna be happy?”

“Of course!” He had Lup again. How could he not be happy?

“...Okay.” Killian finally let go of his shoulder. “Good luck, at least.”

Barry did not thank her. “Are you and Carey going to be okay?”

“Yeah, we’ll find something to do.” Killian shrugged, leaning back and crossing her arms. “Don’t worry about us.”

Impulsively, Barry took her hand. “I want to,” he said. “You were a really good friend, Killian. I’m glad I got to see you again.”

Killian’s mouth loosened into a smile. She smacked Barry a little too hard on the shoulder. “You too, man. Now go hook up with your girlfriend again and be a pirate or whatever.”

Barry grinned, half out of embarrassment. “That’s-”

“Take ‘hook up’ metaphorically if you want, whatever. Just - if this is it for you, go and have your happy ending.”

* * *

__

As Carey and Killian retreated back into the crowds of Rockport, Barry and Taako followed Lup towards the port for which the city was named. The scent of saltwater became more pervasive as they crossed from cobblestone streets to dirt paths and then to wood, which came with sand scattered everywhere and the sound of waves echoing up from underneath. 

There were shops set up at the edge of the docks, but farther out there was only wood and rigging and ships at anchor. There were very many ships, and plenty of piers to accommodate them all. Sailors in various uniforms or uniquely similar, slightly-too-large tunics and caps were rushing around towards the shops or doing work or talking with each other.

Lup determinedly strode down the quay, crutches thumping against the wood. She’d mastered striding well, for someone whose legs could only hold the weight of perhaps a raccoon without collapsing. Taako was nearly glued to her side, one arm discreetly hooked around hers. Barry walked behind them, since piles of rope and crates and other materials stacked on the docks made it impossible to walk three abreast. Besides, it let him give Lup and Taako their privacy; Taako’s head was bent towards hers in a way that suggested a very quiet conversation was happening.

Barry looked at the ships as they went past to resist the urge to listen in. There were ships of all sorts, tiny caravels next to grand galleons and even a longship or other, strange ships that he had no name for. He was admiring a red frigate when he realized that Lup was making a beeline for it, and that the gold curlicues on the bow spelled out, in cursive,  _ Revenge. _

There was no plank set out leading up to the ship, so the three of them came to a halt at its side. Lup heaved a sigh of frustration.

“This was my idea for safety, and now I hate it,” she said, then inhaled deeply and yelled,  _ “Holdsworth!” _

__ Barry and Taako exchanged a baffled glance. Lup was staring up at the deck, apparently waiting for something. Though none of them had noticed anybody on the deck, there was a scuffle and the sound of hurried footsteps before a person leaned out over the side.

“Captain!” Exclaimed the half-orc woman looking down at them. “You’re back! Just one second!” She vanished from view. 

“Who is that?” Taako asked.

“She’s Holdsworth, my first mate,” Lup said. “She’s a sorcerer, too, which is handy to have around. The crew’s a pretty even mix of magicians and rogues and the like.” As she spoke, a small hatch on the side of the ship swung open, and a wooden walkway was pushed down to the dock. 

“What happened?” Holdsworth asked from the top of the walkway. “We were expecting you on the river days ago.”

“I got sidetracked.” Lup scowled at the walkway, then down at her crutches. “Taako, will you-”

“Yeah, sure.” Taako took one of the crutches and her arm around his shoulders, and they began to shuffle sideways up the walkway. Barry stayed close behind the two.

“Are you okay?” Holdsworth’s face had creased into confusion, and she took a step or two down towards them. 

“It’s a long story,” Lup muttered, holding on a little too tightly to Taako, who said nothing. She made an effort to stand as upright as she could once they got onto the deck itself. “How’ve things been?”

“Oh, fine, fine. Nothing big happened, except you taking longer than expected.” Holdsworth straightened too, as if mimicking Lup, linking her hands behind her back. “So, obviously, we came down here and anchored in Rockport, as you ordered.”

“As you ordered?” Barry repeated, looking at Lup curiously.

“My standing rule, when we’re in Faerûn, is if anybody goes missing we go to Rockport and anchor there and they have two weeks to get there and meet up with us again,” Lup informed him. 

“Do people  _ often  _ go missing?”

“I don’t hire incompetents, babe.”

Holdsworth was looking in confusion at Barry, but she was sparing a good deal of attention to looking between Taako and Lup as well. “Are we taking on more crew, now?”

“They’re with me,” Lup said. “They’ll help out. This is Taako, and Barry.” She gestured between the two of them, respectively, and then took back the second crutch from Taako. 

“Hiya,” Taako said.

Holdsworth nodded at him briefly before redirecting her attention back to Lup. “Most everyone’s out enjoying the city while we’re docked, but they’ll be back by tonight. We should be ready to set off in the morning, I don’t think we need much of anything at the moment except some water and maybe food stores, just in case.”

“Good, I was hoping you’d gotten most of what we needed already.”

“And the umbrastaff?” Holdsworth bounced almost undetectably, a spark entering her eyes. Lup grinned back at her.

“Worked  _ excellently. _ ”

“Oh, good! I won’t keep you any longer, then. I’m going to see if I can find Marie.” With that, Holdsworth strode off, taking the stairs up to the raised quarterdeck and vanishing through a door.

“Lup,” Taako said, “this is the  _ coolest fuckin’ ship  _ I have ever laid eyes on.”

The  _ Revenge  _ was certainly impressive even by a layman’s standards. On the deck, the three masts rose high above their heads, the sails tied up in billows of white and rigging which was strung up everywhere. Great nets of rope ladders rose up to the crossbeams which held the sail, and two on each side went all the way up to the lookout’s mount. The wood of the decks shone a dark reddish brown, and on each side cannons stood at the ready in front of closed gunports.

There were two raised decks to the aft, each with a small staircase leading up to the next, and at the prow there was a long bowsprit to which several bits of rigging and pulleys were fastened. Barry had seen, though it wasn’t visible from the deck, a carved figurehead of a woman made of the same reddish wood as the deck just below the bowsprit. It occurred to him also that the color of the Revenge was not the bright crimson of Lup’s jacket, but closer to the dark red of blood.

Taako was poking his foot at the wooden grate that was set into the middle of the deck they were on. “What’s down here, the brig?”

“Cargo,” Lup said, sounding amused. “The brig is somewhere much darker. Come on, I haven’t been home in ages and I want to lie down.”

“Ooh, pirate bedrooms! Let’s see.”

Lup’s cabin, as captain, was in the back of the ship, which meant they had to climb both of the short, ladderlike staircases to the higher decks. It tested her patience somewhat, but she seemed to relax as soon as they entered her room. It had a door that led straight onto the poop deck, and windows that looked out on the ocean behind them. There was a desk pushed against one wall, and a bed haphazardly made, and the rest of the space was covered with her belongings.

“At least you’ve personalized it,” Taako said, laughing. He dropped into the desk chair as Lup navigated her way into the bed, tossing the crutches down onto the floor once she made it.

“Damn, I’m not going to be able to pick those up again,” she said. “Oh, well.” She flopped backwards, nearly missing hitting her head on the wall and instead sprawling dramatically across the mattress, which had sunk deeply under her weight. “The room’s not gonna bite you, Barry.”

“I know.” Barry pointedly moved from where he had been lingering in the doorway. Taako swapped his pointed hat for a tricorner one with a slightly ragged red feather plume, which had been dangling off the back of the chair. “I was just taking it all in.”

“The coolness?” Lup asked.

“The mess?” Taako suggested, examining himself in a hand mirror which had been lying on the desk. 

“That mirror’s more valuable than your entire wardrobe, don’t break it.”

“I’m not gonna,” Taako said, sounding insulted, and flipped it over to examine the back. “There’s a pearl in the handle. Is this loot?”

“Yep. Solid silver, too.” Lup sounded pleased. “Lucas gave it to me. He had weird ideas about what I’d like, but it’s pretty cool to be able to wave around something like that casually.”

“Sweet. You’re living the high life, Lup!” 

Strangely, Lup winced slightly, and then pushed herself up into a sitting position again. “Actually, can I ask you two something?”

“What is it?” Taako asked, at the same time that Barry said “Yeah, sure.”

“Don’t call me Lup.”

“Why not?” Barry questioned, startled. “It’s-”

“My name, I know, but here I’m ‘Captain’ or ‘Roberts’. Remember?” Lup gave them both pleading looks. “They don’t  _ know  _ about Lucas and Maureen and the original Roberts.”

“Right,” Taako said, drawing out the vowel. 

“Don’t you trust them enough to tell them?” Barry asked.

“What kind of people do you think normally sign up to be a pirate?” Lup rolled her eyes. “It defeats the point if more than Roberts herself knows about the sham.”

“Well-” Barry held back what he meant to say. A trustworthy crew seemed like it would be a necessity, but for pirates, loyalty might be too much to ask from the crowd one would hire from. That didn’t mean he necessarily had to like it - or whoever else he might be associating with in the future for the sake of staying with Lup. “Okay.”

“That’s all I ask.” Lup extended her hand towards him, making grabby motions. Barry smiled as he obligingly came closer, though even leaning against the far wall he wasn’t that far away. 

Taako, incapable of doing anything more mature, made grossed-out noises as they kissed and stood up, taking the borrowed hat off. “I’m gonna go explore. I don’t want to know what you’re doing in here.”

“Suit yourself!” Lup shouted after him as he made a speedy exit, grinning wickedly. She tugged Barry closer. “Might as well make him right, right?”

* * *

__

Belowdecks, the ship was dimly lit, with roofs held up by wooden beams and open areas that could loosely be called rooms. They were inevitably full of damp air which smelled strongly of seawater. That, and shelves and casks full of what seemed to be provisions, which were stacked in every conceivable corner. There were scattered lanterns mounted on the walls, at least half of which were missing their glass panes. They were all lit with magical light as opposed to fire, and Taako could see runes scratched into the metal that probably guaranteed that they  _ stayed _ lit. He hadn’t gotten any farther than squinting at the tiny runes carved into the lantern sconce when someone behind him said,

“Oh! Captain, you’re back!”

Really, he should have thought of this sooner.

Taako turned to see a human with long hair spilling over her shoulder. She frowned as soon as she caught sight of his face; the confusion and wariness was intimately familiar to him. The widening of her eyes and the cautious raised hand, less so.

“You’re not the captain,” the woman said, now scowling. A faint magical energy began to gather in her palm.

“Nah, I’m new,” Taako said quickly. “If I was trying to impersonate her, would I go around with my hair this long and a bunch of extra piercings? I’m not an idiot. I’d at least put on her jacket.”

The woman continued to frown at him, but lowered her hand slightly and stopped trying to cast whatever spell she’d had at the ready.

“What’s going on?” A door opened behind Marie, spilling sunlight into the room, and Holdsworth poked her head through. “Ah, Taako! I see you’ve met Marie. Marie, this is one of the captain’s...friends...?”

“Brother,” Taako said, and unable to resist, added, “duh.”

“Right,” Marie said flatly. She stuck her hand out at him. “Marie. I’m master gunner.”

“Taako,” said Taako, instantly coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to display his ignorance by asking what that meant. He shook her hand. “From TV. Are you guys the only ones on board? It seems pretty empty.”

“Lots of us like to spend our time on land while we’re anchored,” Holdsworth said. Marie crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “Marie’s here, and Sabine’s taking a nap. Oh, and Robbie’s in, if you want to talk to him. He’s our cook.”

“I’ll pass,” Taako said. “I’m taking a look around to see the ship, not the people. I don’t do a lot of sailing, and definitely not on ships this big.”

“Suit yourself, but don’t just wander in anywhere. Some of us like our privacy.” Holdsworth’s serious tone made Taako pause, and wonder how many among the crew were as trigger-happy as Marie.

“...I’ll keep that in mind.”

* * *

__

As the day drew on, Taako found the ballast, the ammunition store, and then got bored enough to wander back onto the deck and then climb up to the lookout’s post, which was empty. It offered him a stunning view of the town, as well as a good chunk of the port. Plus, this way he would see anyone who came onboard the  _ Revenge.  _

The sun sank towards the horizon, and a whole host of characters made their way onto the ship. Holdsworth let a small halfling figure up, and the figure then remained by the walkway, which wasn’t put down onto the pier unless someone was close enough to ask for it. 

After that, someone who seemed to be a goliath came aboard, and a group of human-sized figures cheerfully stumbled their way up the walkway around sunset. After  _ that _ , Taako got bored and stared at the horizon while thinking of the spells he’d like to learn until Barry came out of Lup’s cabin to yell at him to come down for dinner.

The galley held, in lieu of having space for anything else but assorted stools and chairs, a long wooden table which Lup presided at the head of. Barry was sitting at her left with the goliath Taako had seen before on his other side, and the seat at Lup’s immediate right was empty, putting Taako between her and Holdsworth.

Lup grinned at him as he sat down. “As you can see,” she said loudly to the rest of the table, “we have guests tonight!” There was a smattering of applause and a wave of comments which were drowned out by all the other remarks being made. “As a consequence, there’s been a seating rearrangement.”

“Next time your friends can fight Dante for those seats!” Someone yelled, to a round of enthusiastic agreement. The goliath, who Taako guessed was Dante, eyed him and Barry over and then shrugged.

“Would I so honor mere friends?” Lup retorted. She was still grinning. “You have been  _ deprived  _ until now of the presence of my twin brother!”

“Identical or not?” A half-elven man from the end of the table called up.

“What do you think?” Lup cocked an eyebrow inquisitively. 

“Not answering doesn’t count,” a human who wasn’t Marie said to the dwarf next to him, putting a hand over the coins the dwarf had been about to push across the table. “Don’t be so eager.”

“He’s been here for all of a couple hours and you’re already taking bets?” Lup hollered, sounding thrilled.

“What else are we supposed to do?” 

“Show some respect!” Lup could not have not meant it more clearly.

“Who’s older?” The dwarf demanded.

“Me,” Taako and Lup said simultaneously. That was enough to send everybody into fits of laughter strong enough that they forgot to ask about Barry, and instead commenced with a series of rapid-fire introductions. 

The goliath was Dante, and they knew Holdsworth of course; there were two other elves, Antonia and Jenkins, and the half-elf at the end of the table was Rowan. Antonia was notable for being, as a druid, the only person on board who was not a wizard, fighter, ranger, or rogue. Jenkins was oddly missing, and Rowan was their sailing master and therefore in charge of navigation. 

The human who had spoken before was Merrick, and oh they’d met Marie already or sort of at least, and the third human in their crew was Maarvey, who everyone took a moment to make fun of for being so silent. Then there was the dwarf Boyland who once took a man’s head off in one go, the tiefling Hudson who was the boatswain, oh and Dante was the quartermaster, too. Then the halfling Sabine who was the gunner-who-wasn’t-the-master-gunner, and the other halfling Robbie, and finally the famous bugbear of the  _ Revenge _ , who was crowded into the corner next to Rowan, and who gave his name as Klarg.

The dinner was excellent, but even Taako barely tasted it. A crowded room full of cheerful people ready to make conversation at any cost will have that effect on anybody. Lup, who gestured and waved her arms about far less than usual as she spoke, made up for any kind of lack on her part with sheer volume and force of personality. Nobody managed to comment on the crutches leaning up against the wall behind her; Taako wasn’t sure anybody noticed them. The next moment he forgot he’d so much as thought about them himself, because Robbie had leaned back to shout down the table and offer him a potion, which everyone yelled at once for him to turn down while the few humans at the table urged him to take it. 

People kept tossing coins back and forth while Klarg tried to catch them, only occasionally losing any money, and the talk overlapped and conversations dovetailed into each other and got confused, and by the time the food was gone and everyone dispersed it was very late indeed. The residual happiness meant that Lup was barely bothered by the brief struggle she had getting up the ladderlike stairs onto the deck.

“Wait,” Taako said in the doorway of her room, when Lup had collapsed into bed again. The issue should probably have occurred to him earlier, but he had been distracted by the ship and then by its inhabitants, so he can be forgiven for the misstep. “Wait - where are we sleeping?”

“You can stay with everyone else,” Lup said, giggling, “‘cause  _ Barry’s  _ staying with me.”

“Gross!” Taako pulled a face, laughing, as Barry went bright red, not that his blush was visible in the dim night light. Beyond the docks, the city was full of flickering torchlight and the noise of people going about their business. Taako pushed Barry in, and then flung the door closed behind him.

With the door closed and none of the lights lit, Barry had to stand still and wait a moment before he could see anything other than the light glinting off the water outside the window. Lup was lying on the bed, looking at him, crutches lying haphazardly on the floor. 

“Come on and come sleep already,” she said. Barry carefully picked his way over across the detritus-laden floor and pulled back the blankets. Lup wriggled, trying to be helpful and stop lying on them.

“You’re so messy,” Barry told her affectionately, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Lup rolled over to press up against him as he started taking his shoes off.

“You won’t be complaining when you’re in the most comfortable bed on this ship,” Lup said. 

“You should probably get undressed, too.”

“I don’t care.”

“Take your shoes off, at least.” 

“You do it, if you care so much.”

“Fine.” Barry, smiling, turned around and started pulling at her boots. Lup started giggling and didn’t stop until he lay down next to her, still fully dressed and with his socks on and everything.

“I think you drank a little too much,” Barry said softly.

“Does it matter? Everyone here does.” Lup threw an arm over him casually. It landed on his neck instead of his torso, but Barry didn’t care.

“This is where you’ve been for the last few years, huh?”

“Do you like it?” Lup’s breath puffed gently against his face every time she spoke. 

“It’s very you in a lot of ways.”

“Good.” In the faint light, Barry saw Lup close her eyes. “That means you’ll stay.”

“Of course I’ll stay,” Barry said. “You’re here.”

Lup patted his face clumsily. “Good,” she said again. “Now go to sleep. You need it.”

“Okay,” Barry said, covering her hand with his. He moved it over his mouth so she could feel his smile, and then pressed a kiss to her palm. “See you in the morning.”

“Yeah, okay. You sap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, here we go. I hope you liked it! My little frame story was a later addition and I'm still not sure where I'm going with it, but I like it. Narrative parallels and all.
> 
> While many of the names of Lup's crewmates may be unfamiliar, every one of them is an NPC from the Adventure Zone (with the exception of Holdsworth, who is from the Stolen Century and the leader of the Arcaneum from episode 66). Hudson and Jenkins are of course from Murder on the Rockport Limited, and everyone remembers Klarg and Robbie, aka Pringles. Antonia and Rowan are from the Suffering Game, and Maarvey is from Petals to the Metal, while Dante, Marie, Merrick, and Sabine are all from the wrestling installment that was one of the live shows.
> 
> Fun fact, since the Revenge is based on the Queen Anne's Revenge, a real pirate ship run by Blackbeard, it should technically have at least forty cannons and a crew of 150+. I don't think that many characters exist in the entire Adventure Zone, much less that many that I haven't already used and don't plan to use elsewhere. This pirate stuff took some wrangling and quick learning on my part, let me tell you.
> 
> Anyway, comment, please!


	2. The Good Ship Wonderland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this one's pretty long! We're verging into more plotty territory here, but not too much yet unfortunately. There's a lot I want to get done, so I'm editing this a lot and may go back and make minor changes to already-posted chapters, just because I'm sorta figuring stuff out as I go. There's a lot of different plot threads to keep track of, and some beloved characters may not show up as much as I'd like them to ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I may put a map in here at some point, just because I want everybody to be able to know where things are. I'm straight-up ignoring implied TAZ locations relative to each other, and instead basically drawing over the official D&D map of Faerûn and putting things where they need to go. But it doesn't matter that much, so we'll see!

 

_ Justin, _

__ _ Thanks for the notebook. Haven’t had time to read it yet, but I promise I will! I wish they still sold stuff like this, it looks super cool. Maybe even handmade. Did you notice there’s a little metal loop on the front? I think this notebook used to have a tiny lock. You should see if you can find that and send it to me, too! _

__ _ I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I read it. I peeked a little at the beginning, and it looks compelling. I don’t see what makes you think it’s dictated yet, but I guess I’ll get there eventually. _

* * *

 

The return of the leader of the rebellion to Neverwinter was not quite as triumphant as anybody had hoped.

In fact, their arrival had barely gone noticed. Julia had been swept into a meeting almost immediately with the new Lord Sterling, and Avi had gone to organize the guards, leaving Magnus and Merle to sit outside Lord Sterling’s office and stare at each other. 

“Do you think anyone would care if I left?” Merle asked after half an hour in which there was no sign of anybody leaving soon. 

Magnus shrugged. “Do you want to? Julia probably wouldn’t mind if you went to go see your family. I didn’t expect you to come with us in the first place.” 

“Seemed more interesting than staying at home listening to Hekuba talk about how she was right.” Merle shifted, trying to find a more comfortable seat. Briefly, voices rose inside Sterling’s office, attracting both of their attentions.

“Wonder what’s so urgent,” Magnus said contemplatively, looking at the door. 

“Geez, where have you been the last twenty years?” Merle scoffed. “Not everybody hated Kalen, y’know. You can’t just depose a king and shove in a new guy and expect everything to keep working as usual.”

“Who  _ liked  _ Kalen?” Magnus asked in astonishment. 

“Assholes, maybe, but there are enough of ‘em that I’d believe they’re making problems.” Merle shook his head. “Humans.”

“Hey.”

“Well not  _ you,  _ obviously.”

* * *

 

Merle took his leave after suffering through another hour of waiting, promising to keep in touch with Magnus. Magnus smiled and waved, and sat in the hallway wondering if Taako was doing anything more interesting.

(At the time, of course, Taako and everyone else save those who had gone to Goldcliff still remained at the manor house in the wilds of Neverwinter, and could only be thought of as doing something ‘more interesting’ if being shouted at by Lup counted as such. It was certainly something  _ more  _ than staring at a blank stone wall waiting for one’s girlfriend to be done with her political maneuverings).

Julia was not done for a long, long time, but after that initial meeting she promised to include Magnus. Magnus quickly came to regret this, because being involved meant being made to learn quite a lot in a very small amount of time.

Before the destruction of Raven’s Roost, he and Julia had worked together; but a rebellion, especially one that was only the beginnings of a real rebellion, was very different from a lordship. Lord Artemis Sterling was only a year or so older than Magnus, and had only had ten years of living under his family’s rule before they had fled from Kalen the Elder’s takeover. He had been in hiding for twenty years, and while he  _ had  _ been taught sporadically about things like law and history and taxes, he was not particularly experienced with the practical aspect of such things.

That was where Julia and her Council came into play. Within a week, there was a small group of people meant to assist Lord Sterling, consisting of herself, Avi, a gnome named Davenport of some minor title, and Magnus, who had strongly protested his inclusion. Julia had shot him down, citing his “valuable insight on the opinion of the common people”. Magnus was pretty sure it was an excuse either to keep him close, or to make it look like Sterling cared what the common people thought.

Sterling did  _ not  _ care, not really, because he’d never been taught to care except in theory. The point of a Lordship was to oversee everyone else in Neverwinter, and now that he finally had to do the ruling himself he was too busy to think about how it was real people with lives and families that his laws and decisions would affect. Magnus remembered that well, but he had never had to do any of this ruling business either, and never had Sterling’s education.

So it was that Magnus found himself buried in books on the history of Neverwinter, on laws, on how to properly advise and how to avoid war and how to win wars when they became unavoidable (the latter depressed him, and he read as little of them as he could get away with). The only thing that helped his mood was that Sterling was similarly buried, and the fact that he only had to give his opinion, never make an actual decision. Though the Council theoretically had veto power (Julia had furiously scribbled down a list of rules and regulations and was in the process of drafting a more complete and formal version), it was Sterling so far who had done all the actual law-making.

The people of Neverwinter, exercising their somewhat theoretical right to a voice in politics, were often at the doors of the castle with some petition or another. Sometimes they had genuine issues; sometimes their issues were over-exaggerated and had to be put to the side; sometimes, as Merle had warned, they were only there to cause trouble for the new Lord, or ask in that particular way whether they were going to simply get rid of the various laws put into place by the temporary kings. Magnus had thrown the first Kalen sympathizer out on his ass, and from then on was not allowed to interact much with petitioners.

It was therefore, in light of all that had happened, with some relief that Magnus managed to briefly escape the political rabbithole he’d followed Julia down. There was an hour-long gap between Sterling’s minor treasury crisis and a Council rules revision Julia had asked him to help with, and Magnus was determined to spend it somewhere that wasn’t a meeting room. 

The castle was very large, and stood separate from the city itself, standing tall on a hill but missing the obligatory moat. The lawns were wide and sweeping, and there were many surprises within the building itself, most of them long-disused rooms that the Kalens had never got around to using or destroying the contents of. One of these, as Magnus shortly discovered, was a room with nothing more than a lot of old wood stacked up inside.

An hour and a half later, Julia finally found him there, surrounded by wood shavings and a chain of ducks in descending size order. 

“There you are,” she said. Magnus jumped, cutting a line across the in-progress duck’s wing.

“Oh - was I late? Sorry, Jules.” He put the knife and the duck down guiltily.

“It’s fine. Davenport offered to substitute, but I came to look for you instead.” Julia stepped inside and sat down on the floor next to him with a sigh, sticking her legs out in front of her. Magnus patted her knee. “I could use a break, too.”

“You could schedule one for yourself,” Magnus suggested. Julia cracked a smile, ducking her head. 

“There’s always something else to do.” The sunlight coming through the window was held in shafts of pale yellow by the dust and tiny flecks of wood that had been disturbed by Magnus, landing on Julia and painting bright highlights into her curly hair. The scars from the fire that covered her cheek were also visible, faded but not gone. She looked like a dramatic painting, with the contrast of the light throwing the other side of her face into dark shadow; something that would be rediscovered in the far future and put up in a museum for everyone to admire.

“What are you thinking about?” Julia asked, distracting Magnus from his thoughts. 

“You,” he answered honestly. Julia smiled again, the corners of her eyes crinkling into fine lines.

“If you start trying to flatter me, we’re going to be late to Sterling’s agricultural meeting.”

“Ugh! I don’t know anything about agriculture,” Magnus groaned. “Stuff grows when you put in the ground at the right time of year. Isn’t that the important stuff?” 

“There’s more to it than that, Magnus. Technically Sterling dictates everything to do with selling the crops, and then there’s legal disputes and shop permits-”

“Let’s not talk about it while we’re taking a break,” Magnus pleaded. “Look, I made ducks!”

“You always make ducks.” Julia ran a finger lightly along the back of the largest one, which wasn’t all that large, since most of the wood in the room was already somewhat finished. “Even years later, apparently.”

“I like ducks. They’re easy.” Magnus arranged the ducks into a small circle. “All of this stuff was easier when we were just a couple of citizens getting together groups to go paint-bomb the governor’s mansion.”

“I don’t think we ever paint-bombed, unless there’s something you’re not telling me.” Julia shifted into a more comfortable position. “It was easier because we had no power.”

“Geez, get all negative on me, why don’t you.”

Julia snorted. “Okay, fine. We didn’t do a lot at first, but at least we got to sleep in if we wanted to.” 

“I don’t think I’ve slept in in the last  _ ever, _ ” Magnus said. “I haven’t even gone to bed early. Well, that’s different, actually. Going to bed early is what nerds do.”

“Nerds who get reasonable amounts of sleep.”

“Maybe being tired is cool.”

Julia laughed faintly to herself, and rubbed a hand over her face. “I was always tired back then,” she admitted. “It didn’t seem to matter how much sleep I got, I was always worrying.  _ You  _ were the one who was confident that we’d make it.”

“And here we are, right? We did make it.” 

“And you’re complaining about it.”

“Hey, I signed up for the deposing part!” Magnus threw his arms out. “I wasn’t thinking about governing or anything! I don’t even know how you ended up with Sterling in the first place.”

“His parents died,” Julia said. “They’d been keeping hidden in the manor, and once he was alone he was old enough to figure out how to send word to us - or, well, he got to Avi first, actually. It was complicated back then. And then after what happened to Raven’s Roost, we more or less took over the place while we figured out how to get him back into the city.”

“Oh.” That at least answered Magnus’s other questions about why Sterling had returned without any other family members in sight. He didn’t ask how the parents had died; it would probably only depress him. He fidgeted with the unfinished duck, turning it over and over.

“Something you want to say?”

“I wish I’d been there,” Magnus said. “I would’ve been, but it reminded me so much of you. And right after what happened, it was too much.”

Julia sighed, reaching out to touch his arm. “You don’t need to apologize for that. I don’t blame you for it.” 

“I know, but-”

“No ‘but’s. It’s in the past, Magnus. You can’t keep looking back towards it instead of forwards. You’re going to walk into a tree that’s metaphorically your midlife crisis or something, and then we’ll have to have this exact same conversation again, and-”

“Okay, okay.” Magnus was smiling again despite himself. 

“And hey, I never tried to go looking for you in Goldcliff, either. We both did stupid shit.”

An idea occurred to Magnus. Taking up one of the ducks, he offered it to Julia and said, “Wanna do some stupid shit together?”

* * *

 

They were late to the agricultural meeting, both with mud-caked shoes and wet up to the knees from when they’d frantically waded into the pond when the smallest of the ducks they’d set afloat was nearly eaten by a real duck, and both were bearing identical broad grins.

* * *

 

The crew of the  _ Revenge  _ woke up the next morning to one still-missing crewmember.

Jenkins, who neither Taako nor Barry had gotten the chance to meet, had never reappeared onboard. When it became clear that Lup might be forced to delay their departure, Maarvey reluctantly came forward with the message that Jenkins did not intend to return, ever, and had rather informally broken his charter with Lup’s ship, taking off with only his possessions and a little money - far less than the share he was entitled to, in fact. Frowning, Lup had curtly redistributed what he’d left behind among the crew, and ordered them to raise anchor. 

By the time the anchor was actually raised, however, she had recovered her good mood. This was largely due to the fact that her streak of good days had persisted, allowing her to stand at the wheel under her own (crutch-assisted) power. She hadn’t even bothered putting her shoes on that morning, instead going barefoot up onto the deck before any of the other crew got there.

Barry lingered close to her, staying out of the way of the bustle of activity that weighing anchor required. Dante and Boyland were raising the anchor itself with the aid of a capstan (which Barry had only just learned the name of). Everyone else was busy adjusting rigging, lowering sails, and in the case of Taako climbing up to the lookout’s nest to replace Jenkins, as the only other full-blooded elf on board who wasn’t the captain was Antonia, who was blind. Given the patterned blue cloth she wore tied around her face, Barry wasn’t sure she still  _ had  _ her eyes. 

As Barry watched Taako finish his climb, a strong wind swept down the docks, pulling at people’s hair and loose clothing. Lup, wearing the tricorn hat with the feather and her crimson jacket, closed her eyes and smiled.

“A good wind,” she muttered to herself, and then yelled down to Holdsworth, “Ready when you are!” She was still leaning on one crutch, her other hand holding onto the wheel. 

“Aye!” Holdsworth yelled back, gesturing frantically to Dante, who appeared to be finishing up with the anchor. As the ship slowly drifted towards the open sea, any crew members who weren’t already on the crosstrees of the masts swarmed up to them, going to work in the haze of rigging that was strung around and between the masts. Barry could see more than a few mage hands at work, and ropes moving more easily than their thickness and length would suggest they should be able to.

“There’s so much to do,” Barry said, wondering how soon he would be expected to lend a hand. Some of the workings of the ship looked rather complicated, and there were more ropes than he knew what to do with. 

“It would be easier if we had more crew,” Lup said. “We don’t need so many to run the cannons while we’ve got magic, but there was a bad battle a little while ago, and we still haven’t managed to hire enough people to make up for it.” 

“...You mean a lot of people died,” Barry said. “Geez, I’m sorry.”

Lup shrugged, but her mouth had settled into a grimmer line. “We were running on a skeleton crew before, anyway. We’re making it work.”

The wind blew more strongly, catching any open sails. Other sails descended one by one, snapping in the wind and pulling the  _ Revenge  _ forward with a slowly gaining speed. Taako was a tiny figure on the top of the mainmast, legs hooked around a crosstree. 

“Where to, captain?” Holdsworth called. “The Trackless Sea? The Great Ocean?”

“The Moonshae Isles,” Lup ordered. “If anyone’s foolish enough to cross our path, we’ll take care of it on the way.”

“Aye,” Holdsworth said, but she looked puzzled. She turned away and repeated the order at a shout before Barry could examine her expression more closely.

“What’s on the Moonshae Isles?” Barry asked, leaning closer. Above them, the largest sail on the mizzenmast opened and billowed out, catching the wind and tugging the  _ Revenge  _ out to sea.

Lup flashed him a grin. “The Dread Pirate Roberts,” she said. “He and I need to have a talk.” She looked over her shoulder, then leaned forward over the wheel to shout, “Hoist the colors!” 

A scattering of yells and cheers in response came from the figures in the rigging, and two leaped down to the bottom of the mainmast, where a square of folded cloth was lying. Faster than any could have managed without magic, the ripple of red cloth went rocketing up towards where Taako was sitting. At the top, it unfurled - blood-red as the ship, bearing a grinning skeletal face.

“Let’s go kick some ass!” Lup shouted, pumping her hand in the air. The crew screamed their approval.

Barry began to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. 

* * *

 

Carey and Killian, from a rooftop in Rockport, watched the  _ Revenge  _ shrink slowly into a faint red and white smudge on the horizon. 

“You think he’s gonna be okay?” Carey asked, tail swaying back and forth nervously.

Killian shrugged. “Barry can probably manage himself, but those twins are...something else. Lup  _ seems _ alright.”

“Except for the Dread Pirate Roberts thing.”

“Yeah, that.” Killian put her chin in her hand, watching what little of the  _ Revenge  _ could still be seen from shore. “Still, the whole thing with Kalen turned out alright.”

“Yeah, and Kalen was even worse!”

Killian’s brow wrinkled. She didn’t speak to either contradict or agree with Carey, but kept her eyes on the ship for as long as she could until it finally sailed out of sight.

“Let’s see what there is to see in Rockport,” Carey suggested. “There’s probably sailor’s bars and stuff. I’ve never been in a sailor’s bar.”

“You just want to see how many people you can pickpocket,” Killian said, but she was smiling. “Okay. Let’s go.”

* * *

 

There were fewer bars open during the day, though ‘fewer’ was still a good deal of the city’s inns and pubs. The ones that offered service so early tended to err towards offering food as well as drink, catering to a lunch and dinner crowd rather than rowdy sailors looking to get stinking drunk. There were always a few day-drinkers or those who thought it would be easier to break their sober streak when not surrounded by a crowd of other drinkers, but those tended to be the minority.

Carey headed straight for one she had seen earlier and taken an interest to. The Rose & Thorn didn’t look like much, or much different than the seven other bars lined up near the docks, but the music and talk from inside had intrigued her - and besides, it looked very full, and it was always easiest to do rogue business in a crowd. 

And there was indeed a crowd within the Rose & Thorn. Groups of people sat gathered around tables, or in clusters at the bar. Carey wound her way around the barmaids moving from table to table, trying not to grin. Dragonborn grins tended to unnerve people instead of reassure them. 

Killian leaned over the counter as soon as they got close enough, trying to get somebody’s attention. Carey took a seat, hooking her feet around the rungs of the stool.

“They’re not very likely to serve strangers fast,” said a voice next to her. “Not nonhuman strangers, anyway.”

Carey turned towards the source. A human woman was sitting one stool away from hers, tracing patterns in the condensation on a small glass of fizzy liquid.

“They’ll get to you eventually,” the woman said, “but most of the staff are human, and they’ve got a preference, I’ve noticed. It’s unfortunate. I’m Oriana, by the way.”

“I’m Carey.” Carey stuck out her hand, and Oriana took it unhesitatingly. With the other arm, she elbowed Killian. “Don’t put too much energy into it, babe.”

“Fuck that,” Killian said. Carey shrugged, rolling her eyes. Oriana covered her smile with one hand.

“Are you waiting to ship out?” Oriana asked.

“No, we came here with a couple of friends who just left. We’re kind of at loose ends,” Carey admitted. 

“Well, there’s hardly lack of work. Ships pick up people all the time. What with pirates about, there can be a pretty quick turnover.”

Carey laughed, hoping to hide the sudden awkwardness and the way she’d frozen for a moment at the mention of pirates. “I’d heard.” In a flash of daring, she added, “My friend thinks she saw the  _ Revenge  _ in port yesterday.”

“Oooh, I heard that too!” Oriana leaned closer. “Everyone’s been talking about it, but not outright. I mean, nobody really  _ wanted  _ to say anything, you know? Makes you wonder if Roberts himself has been walking around under our noses the whole time.”

“The way I heard the stories told, Roberts is a woman,” Carey said, as Killian practically grabbed the bartender by the throat to get his attention. 

“I’ve heard it a few times both ways. Maybe people just can’t tell.” Oriana shrugged. “To be honest, I’ll be glad when Roberts is gone, whatever the gender.”

“It just left,” Carey said. “Have you been in here all morning?”

“What, it did? When?”

“It  _ just  _ left, like ten minutes ago.”

“Huh.” Oriana sat back in her seat, then raised her glass. “Well, I’ll drink to that.” She downed half of it as Killian plunked down a tankard in front of Carey. “Let’s hope nobody worse comes around!”

“Nobody  _ worse? _ ” Killian repeated. “You got a bar for worse that’s higher than the Dread Pirate Roberts?”

Oriana pulled a face. “Well, you hear things in ports like these. I don’t know.”

Carey and Killian exchanged a glance. “What kind of things?” Carey asked, as Killian took a pull from her tankard in a way that Carey knew meant she was doing her best to avoid getting herself into the conversation.

Oriana glanced around, then leaned closer. “People are saying things,” she said, voice barely audible over the chatter and the musicians in the corner. “You know how Roberts has been weirdly inactive the last few years, yeah?”

Carey nodded, wondering if the inactivity had anything to do Lup. She wished she’d asked more questions about that particular coincidence when they’d still been in the company of the other three.

“There’s been rumors of another crew,” Oriana said. “A pirate crew, running a ship named the  _ Wonderland.  _ Now, nobody’s properly seen her or the crew, but word’s gotten around. People say they saw her off in the distance, and every tale I’ve heard originates with one woman. She says her whole crew was captured and killed, but she was let go to tell everyone about this crew. She swears up and down that the crew is full of undead and spirits, and the captains can make you think anything they want you to, make you see your heart’s desire so that you walk straight into your death.”

Killian, by then, had put her tankard down. “So pirates are using magic,” she said. “That’s nothing new. The crew could be under illusions, too.”

“Everyone seems pretty convinced by this survivor,” Oriana said. “I’m not sure. I’d have to meet her to say for myself. But even if it’s just a ghost story,  _ somebody  _ sank the  _ Raven  _ and the  _ Animus. _ ” 

“I haven’t heard of those ships,” Carey said. Killian elbowed her hard in the side, and when Carey turned around to berate her Killian hissed, 

“Can we speak privately?”

Bewildered, Carey turned back to Oriana. “We should get a table,” she said. “Came here to enjoy ourselves and all. Nice talking to you - at least I’ve got a good campfire story, now.”

Oriana nodded, waving a hand to bid them farewell as Killian pulled Carey away. Carey snagged her tankard at the last second.

“Alright, what’s this about?” Carey asked as Killian crowded her in a corner. “Did the pirate talk just make you horny or whatever?”

“No! Shut up.” Killian looked very serious, which stopped Carey from continuing the joke. “I’ve heard of the  _ Raven  _ before, and so have you.”

“I have?”

“It was the ship that was supposed to take Sterling to Neverwinter originally, remember? Except it never got to us, because pirates sank it.”

_ “Oh,”  _ Carey said, remembering in a rush. “That was the  _ Raven?” _ Named the  _ Raven  _ for Raven’s Roost, if her recently-unearthed memories spoke the truth. “You had to pull me aside to tell me that?”

Killian pressed her lips together, the parts around her protruding teeth going a paler green. “Do you remember a year or so ago, when I went off on...our business by myself for a mission? Chasing after Brian?”

“Of course.” Killian had come back steaming mad because she’d never been able to track him down. The last Carey had heard of Brian he’d started calling himself the Black Spider or something, though she hadn’t heard about him at all recently (not that she really tried to hear anything). 

“I heard some stuff about the Raven while I was on my own,” Killian said. “It wasn’t...I’m inclined to believe that the  _ Wonderland  _ is trouble, even if the stories about it seem to be exaggerated.”

“Oh, the  _ Wonderland?”  _ Both of them jumped at the cheerful male voice that interrupted. A man on the barstool closest to them had leaned over to speak to them. “I’ve heard of it. They say the crew is full of zombies.”

“Nah, it’s undead spirits,” his companion protested. “But it’s the captains you have to worry about.”

“Captains?” A woman at the table behind the second man turned around. “What kind of ship has more than one captain?”

“The  _ Wonderland  _ does,” the first man said. “They say the captains of it are identical twins, heartless elves that’ll never let you leave alive.”

“Hey!” An elven woman at the table protested.

“I’m saying  _ they’re  _ heartless, it wasn’t a comment on elves in general. That’s why I  _ specified.” _

__ As the conversation drew in more and more people, the stories grew wilder and wilder. The  _ Wonderland  _ was captained by elves, then by undead, then by ancient trickster spirits, two or three or four in number. The crew were zombies, or enchanted, or also spirits. It had sunk a thousand ships and everybody had attributed them to the Dread Pirate Roberts by mistake, or Roberts had inspired the  _ Wonderland  _ into action. Everyone had a different story to tell. There were almost too many to keep track of.

When Killian voiced this opinion dryly, a few people laughed, and the elven woman from before pointed over her shoulder.

“If you want to hear a  _ real  _ tall tale, you should talk to him,” she said. “He’s got all sorts of theories and wacky shit.”

Carey glanced at Killian. Killian’s arms were crossed, and she looked largely unimpressed by the various attempts that had been made to outdo everyone else’s stories. The direction the elven woman had pointed was towards a small table near the back, where a man picking at the strings of a violin was sitting hunched over. He didn’t fit in with the cheerful atmosphere of the tavern; he looked as though he’d come in with the night crowd of morose drunks and never had the thought occur to him to leave.

Killian gave Carey an incredulous look as the latter got up and began to head towards the violinist. After only a few steps, however, Carey heard her girlfriend’s chair scrape and heavy footsteps follow her. 

The violinist didn’t look up as they approached. Carey had to clear her throat pointedly a couple times before he even took his attention off his violin. 

“Oh, hey,” said the violinist, in a dour voice. “Did you want something?”

“I want to talk to you about the  _ Wonderland,”  _ Carey said. The violinist heaved a sigh. 

“If you’re here to make fun of me-”

“I’m not,” Carey interrupted. “I just wanna know. Humor me.” She stuck her hand out at him. “I’m Carey.”

The violinist eyed her over, then withdrew his hand from the strings to clasp her scaly one. “My name’s Johann.”

“So, Johann.” Carey sat down across from him. “What do you know about the  _ Wonderland?” _

__ Johann shrugged, eyeing (far more warily) Killian, who was looming behind Carey. “I talked to that lady they all like to say they got their stories from. The one who survived it. I probably know a lot about it.”

“Then I’d like to know everything you know.”

The solid facts, scarce as they were, were these: the  _ Wonderland,  _ a fairly new ship, was captained by a pair of elves possessed of great magical talent, mostly to do with illusions or perhaps necromancy. Their crew was a mystery in its entirety, and their victims were scarce only due to the recent start to their pirate career.

“The problem is that everyone gets them mixed up with the other stories,” Johann said, idly plucking out a few notes with his finger. His bow, Carey had noticed, was lying at his side unused. He had not made a motion to pick it up once. 

“What other stories?” Killian asked. “Other  _ Wonderland  _ stories?”

Johann shook his head. “The magical twin elves thing has been a real popular trope in stories for the last century or so. There’s about eighty folk songs I’ve heard that are all variations on a theme; some kingdom or another driven into ruin with magic and neglect and death by a pair of elvish rulers. Like the Felicity Wilds, you know.”

Carey glanced up at Killian, but couldn’t get a good look at her face. “I heard about the Felicity Wilds story, briefly,” she said. “Isn’t it true?”

Johann shrugged, looking away uncomfortably. “Maybe. I doubt they’re all true, or else there were a lot of elvish twins in the last century. I don’t think it’s that common for elves to have more than one kid at a time.”

Carey only shrugged. She could not, of course, help but think of Lup and Taako - but under no circumstance would they would be able to establish a reputation like that of the  _ Wonderland _ so quickly. There was unlikely, and then there was impossible. And besides, the ship they had only just set sail on was named the  _ Revenge.  _

“Do you think the  _ Wonderland  _ is a true story?” Carey asked. Johann’s fingers stilled, and he met her eyes properly for the first time that night.

“If you’d met the lady who survived them,” he said, “You wouldn’t have to ask me that.”

“Save the dramatics,” Killian grumbled. “Why’s everyone think you’re some kind of conspiracy theorist when this is all you have to say on the subject?”

Johann hesitated, fingers tightening around the neck of the violin. His free hand tapped a metronome on the table. 

“I think it’s all them,” he said. Carey and Killian exchanged a baffled look. “The  _ Wonderland,  _ the stories, the Felicity Wilds, all of it. How rare is it for elves to be born twins? How many elvish twins can become  _ that  _ magically powerful? It’s only in the last century that this pervasive myth of magical twins has become prominent - elves can live to be over  _ seven  _ hundred.”

“Wait,” Carey said. “So you’re saying they’re just a pair of elves going around and, what, running kingdoms into ruin and now they’re pirates? Or are all the songs about the Felicity Wilds?”

“I don’t know.” Johann was animatedly plucking out some tune on his violin, hands shaking slightly. “The songs are different, and some are definitely about different places, but some could just have changed to fit local tradition over time. There are some I know for sure. The Felicity Wilds, the Woven Gulch, the High Moor.”

“All of those places are empty,” Killian said.

“That’s the  _ point.  _ They’ve been ruined by what happened to them. But they  _ all  _ used to be the center of some kingdom or another. You can look it up yourself it you don’t believe me.” 

Carey squinted at him. As a rogue, she was good at reading people; the job demanded it. Without knowing who was lying and who wasn’t, it was only too easy to take a job that would get the taker killed. Johann wasn’t lying about anything he said; and while some of it may have been his own fervent belief, what he was saying wasn’t  _ that  _ outlandish.

“I believe you,” she said. “At least you’re not trying to tell me that the moon is fake and built by an extragovernmental group of vigilantes.”

Johann brightened. It was a subtle change, but still markedly a change; Carey hadn’t realized he was frowning until he stopped. 

“I don’t think it’s that unrealistic, anyway,” he told her. “People always want power, right? Just to feel better about themselves or whatever. Like that whole mess happening in Neverwinter. The  _ Wonderland  _ could sail right up the coast and set themselves up nicely up there, if they wanted to.”

Behind Carey, Killian went very still.

“I have to go,” Carey said. She didn’t wait for Johann’s expression to finish transitioning into disappointment before striding purposefully towards the door, Killian half a second behind her.

Outside, Carey turned to face her. “We can probably get a train up to Neverwinter,” she said. 

“I’ve got money,” Killian said. Her expression was grim. “Let’s see how fast these trains go.”

* * *

 

It may have pleased Carey and Killian to know that, while not in that same moment were others learning of the tales, they were not the only ones among their friends who knew to be wary of the  _ Wonderland. _

Once the  _ Revenge _ had reached the open sea proper, the crew had begun to steer in an oddly southerly direction, keeping along the coast instead of heading west straight across the sea. Lup, when she had demanded to know the reason for the change of course, had been given much the same mishmash of stories that Carey and Killian had originally heard.

Unfortunately for them, there was no Johann on the  _ Revenge. _

__ “Fine,” Lup conceded eventually. “We’ll stay near the coast and go through the southern pass into the Isles - but be on your guard. It may be safer than running into this other ship, but that doesn’t mean we won’t run across anyone who thinks they can defeat some pirates.”

“Lucky we’re not just ‘some pirates’ then, captain,” Holdsworth replied promptly.

“And the  _ Wonderland  _ doesn’t sound so fearsome to us, yet we avoid it.”

“Well...” Holdsworth hesitated.

“What?” Lup asked impatiently. She was still holding onto the wheel, but now it looked more like a death grip. 

“They’ve made threats against you, personally,” Holdsworth confided in an undertone. “The  _ Wonderland  _ doesn’t like anybody else being known as ‘Dread’, it seems, especially not officially. It’s been unclear whether they want to humiliate you or kill you, but either way them and us is not a fight I’d like to see.”

Lup’s expression had gone stony. She stared out past Holdsworth, fingers flexing on the wheel.

“Captain?”

“I’m thinking,” Lup snapped, brow creased. “Hold our course. Tell Taako to keep an eye out for other ships. You’re going to have to let him know what kind of flags to look out for.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Get Rowan. I need to think about this.” Lup leaned away from the wheel, straightening her back but not letting go quite yet.

Holdsworth hustled off. Barry couldn’t help but glance around at the sea they were sailing through. There were no other ships around, much less one as vividly colored as the  _ Wonderland  _ had been described to him and Lup. From what he’d heard, though, it wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable for the  _ Wonderland  _ to appear out of nowhere and start a fight.

“You called, captain?” Rowan came up the stairs to the quarterdeck two at a time. He was a relatively young man, and as far as Barry could tell his scruffy beard was the result of valiant effort; he was also relentlessly cheerful, and was smiling as he approached despite Lup’s grumpiness.

“You know the way; I need you to take over briefly.” Lup released the wheel, and Rowan hurried to take her place.

“Sure,” he said. “We’ve never sailed this way before, though-”

“My brother’s keeping lookout. He’ll yell if he sees any danger.” As Lup stepped away from the wheel, Barry could see her legs trembling, and hurried to take her free arm. Lup, however, pushed him away, and determinedly wobbled down to her cabin door.

Barry, never one to take a hint when he knew better than to think Lup didn’t need any help, followed her.

“Is this about the  _ Wonderland,  _ or needing a break?” He asked, closing the cabin door behind him. It was dim inside; the sun was at the wrong angle to cast any light through the windows. 

“Shut up.” Lup was at her desk, in the chair, crutch tossed to the wayside. Its twin was on the other side of the room. “Can’t I just be thinking like I said? I’ve got a whole crew to worry about, and you and Taako, and if we  _ do  _ run across these other fools we’re still barely functioning enough to sail properly-”

“But we haven’t run into them,” Barry said. 

“We _may,_ if they hate me that much just for being Dread.” Lup covered her face with her hands, then scraped her hair back. Her hands were shaking. “Why do there have to be _more_ problems? I didn’t even want to be Roberts. They can fucking _have_ it.”

“You don’t mean that,” Barry said. “I mean, I get that the pirate thing is weird, but what about all these people?”

Lup shook her head, fingers digging into her scalp. “It’s not  _ weird.  _ That’s not-” She closed her mouth, biting at her lips. “I don’t dislike it here.” 

“Okay,” Barry said. He thought many things about Lup’s current situation, but he said none of them. He was acutely aware that he had barely been onboard for more than twenty-four hours, and that Lup had had two years to acclimate herself to her new role as well as her crewmates. In addition, he felt keenly the distance of time between them; two years of piracy for her, and of wandering for him, only to reunite less than a month ago. The time they’d had together had been short since they reunited, even left alone in the Sterling manor house with only Taako and a few others for alternative company.

“I  _ don’t, _ ” Lup repeated. 

“Okay. I believe you.”

Lup scoffed, but it was halfhearted. She dropped her hands and let her head hang before looking back up at him. “You’re not meant to be a pirate. Look at you.”

Barry did. He’d been given a change of clothes at the manor, so most of his outfits were a mix of simple pieces and the fancy suit, in all its layers, that he’d still been wearing when he was rescued from Neverwinter. The doublet glimmered with silver embroidery over the roughspun tunic.

“I could be, for you,” Barry offered, looking back up. A complicated expression passed over Lup’s face.

“What would you have done if I was really dead?” She asked abruptly. 

“What? Why?”

“Just tell me.”

“...I don’t know,” Barry admitted. “I don’t think I knew for a long time. Then Phandalin happened, and then Kalen, and I didn’t have much of a choice.”

His answer did not seem to reassure her. Lup looked at him for a long moment, worry and frustration playing across her features.

“It can’t be the two of us against the world forever,” Lup said finally. 

Taken aback, Barry let his arms fall to the side. “Where is this going?” He asked. “Lup, that sounds like a breakup thing.”

“No, fuck, it’s not. It’s not a breakup thing.” Lup shook her head and made to stand up. “I should-”

Her legs wobbled. Barry, anticipating it, lunged over to Lup and caught her when her legs failed her. Lup’s fingers dug into his shoulders painfully, and she made no attempt to extricate herself from his grip or try and stop her face from being pressed into his chest.

“Fuck,” Lup said again, in a very small voice. Her voice shook, and then she herself twitched involuntarily in Barry’s grip.

Barry, familiar with the way Lup’s body now misbehaved on occasion, held her tightly as the fit of shuddering worked its way through her system. He managed, if gracelessly so, to get them both into the chair. Lup made as if to curl up and instead nearly kneed him in the face.

“I don’t think it’s that bad, what I’d do because I love you,” Barry said, in order to have  _ something  _ to do other than watch Lup try and fail to wrest back control over her own limbs. One of her hands relaxed its grip on his shoulder, then tightened again. “When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, all those years - I think I would’ve found something eventually. I don’t know if it scares you how lost I got, or if it was something else, but if it makes you feel better to think that I would have, in some way, moved on, then I’ll say it. And I’m not  _ just  _ saying that to make you feel better. It’s the truth.”

Lup said nothing. Barry did not take it personally. Only a few weeks ago Lup had tried to speak during one of these same incidents and nearly bitten through her tongue. After that, she kept her mouth firmly closed until her body had decided to listen to her again.

One ear twitched, her knee hit Barry’s armpit, and then Lup was still for a heartbeat or two. She shifted and uncurled a little so that she was looking over Barry’s shoulder, instead of pressed into his doublet.

“There’s just so much shit in my life,” she said. “It was easier when all I had to do was climb a four-hundred-foot cliff to rescue you from kidnappers.”

Barry snorted. “And fight your brother, and poison a criminal mastermind.”

“You give the Black Spider too much credit.” Lup turned her head, the edge of one ear brushing against the shell of Barry’s. “And that wasn’t that difficult.”

“It doesn’t seem like that much is now,” Barry said. “There’s just a lot of it. We could sit here and imagine all the ways it would have been better if you’d come home like you’d meant to and we’d, I don’t know, gone off adventuring together and never had anything to do with pirates. But that doesn’t seem very productive to me.”

“Productive,” Lup muttered, leaning back. “Always so sensible, Bluejeans. Is that how you really define your life? What’s sensible about being a pirate?”

“I think I’ve already said why I’m here,” Barry said, smiling at her. 

“Is it worth doing something that isn’t sensible, or secure?”

“It seems like it takes a lot of hard work, and that’s definitely one of the tenets of the Bluejeans family.”

Lup snorted, letting her head fall forward so that her forehead was resting on his shoulder. “Right, forgot about that one.”

“I was a farm hand for your family for  _ years,  _ how could you forget about hard work?” Barry teased. 

“A lot of stuff has happened since then! It’s a reasonable thing to slip my mind. You know what else is hard work? Piracy. I had a guy once try to loot a whole ship on his own and then attempt to make off with everything he could.”

“Did he try to swim away and sink?” Barry questioned, half teasing still. The way Lup didn’t answer made him hastily change the subject. “While we’re talking about your job-”

“It’s a  _ job?” _

__ “Profession, then, I think you need to focus on just one thing at a time. Maybe along the way to the Isles you can dock somewhere and pick up a few more people.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lup mused. She was silent for a few more moments, and then said, “Tell Holdsworth we should stop in Candlekeep on the way to pick up a few more crew.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah, or I’m gonna forget.” Lup raised her head to give him a wry smile. “I’ll be fine on my own, you know.”

“If you’re sure.” Barry employed some careful wiggling and shifting around until he could stand up and leave Lup on the chair. “Yell if you need me, okay?”

“I think the crew needs you more,” Lup said. “Now  _ go.  _ I won’t collapse as soon as you turn your back.”

“I know.” But, Barry thought as he turned to leave, the possibility that she  _ could _ collapse stayed as a niggling worry in the back of his head.

* * *

 

Holdsworth heaved a legitimate, enormous sigh of relief when Barry found her to deliver the news.

“What a relief. We were going to sign on a few more people, but she put a hold on that when she heard about what you were up to. Here, help me pull this rope.”

Barry flushed as he took the rope. “She told all of you about me?”

“A lot was implied. She did have to put it to a vote whether we were going to stop and let her run off to do it. Pull with me!” 

Obediently, Barry pulled, entirely unsure of what pulling the rope was doing. “A vote?”

“Everything’s a vote. Luckily nobody objected to going up to the Moonshae Isles, or else we’d’ve had a talk with the captain again.” Holdsworth slapped his hand. “You’re not paying attention. Are we going to have to start singing to get you to pull on time?”

“Singing?” Barry hastily tried to match his pace with Holdsworth’s. “I thought songs were just for fun.”

“And for keeping the beat. Antonia!” Holdsworth called down to the forecastle deck. “What songs have you got right now?”

“That’s easy!” Antonia called back up. “As long as you can do the other parts, there are plenty of work songs to choose from.”

Holdsworth laughed. As Barry carefully kept his own count for when to pull, Antonia’s voice echoed up to the quarterdeck.

_ I sailed away to a faraway isle _

__ _ To bring my girl the jewel of the Nile, _

__ _ Though lashed and left I found it and ran, _

__ _ But she’d took the jewels of another man. _

After every line, Holdsworth replied with her own line -  _ Hoist the old mast down! _ Barry could hear the other crewmembers chiming in from every possible direction, and found that he was moving in smooth tandem with Holdsworth. The rhythm of the song was repetitive and simple, enough so that by the second chorus he could chime in as well.

_ Hoist the old mast down, my boys, _

__ _ Hoist the old mast down _

__ _ Another day you’ll find your way _

__ _ So hoist the old mast down! _

Sea spray misted over the sides of the ship, and waves splashed against the smooth wood. The air smelled heavily of salt, his companions were all relative strangers, and the rope gave Barry calluses. Nonetheless, he found himself at the end of the day happy and chatting with Hudson as they changed the angle of the spanker sail (which, ten minutes previously, Barry had not known the name nor function of).

He hadn’t worried once, not even about Lup. He barely remembered Taako, unless the elf called down warnings about rocks and strange-looking currents. 

It was strangely soothing, to lose himself in work and conversation. It was something Barry hadn’t had in a long time. He’d forgotten why he’d turned to that kind of work in the first place, the kind one could make talk and friends over. He learned that Dante had once designed clothes, that Hudson used to run trains out of Rockport. Rowan and Antonia had traveled together for a long time, taking odd jobs before turning (a little on accident) to piracy. When Barry mentioned that he had friends in Goldcliff, Maarvey volunteered that he came from the same place. Klarg didn’t speak much, but he lifted the lifeboat in one hand to mop the deck properly, and that said enough about him.

Barry told them plenty about himself, editing the Kalen business a little out of embarrassment. The crew seemed to be plenty impressed by tales of Lup’s heroism, and they agreed speedily to the stop at Candlekeep. Several of them told exaggerated tales of how they were being overworked, speaking with relief of their soon-to-be-larger crew.

“It must have been very recently you had that battle,” Barry said offhandedly to Holdsworth. “Lup mentioned it to me.”

“It was right before we caught wind of you,” Holdsworth said, smirking. “We were going to find a few more people, but as soon as the name ‘Barry Bluejeans’ came out of somebody’s mouth Captain was turning right around to head back up to Neverwinter.”

Barry rubbed the back of his neck, hoping his flush wasn’t too visible. “Hope I didn’t throw too much of a wrench in your plans.”

“Oh, you did. But now we’re back on track, so it’s alright.” Holdsworth elbowed him in a way that was probably meant to be friendly but came off more painful. “And if we ever run across the  _ Hammerhead  _ again, we’ll be in a position to make them regret it.”

“The  _ Hammerhead?  _ Oh, that was the ship,” Barry realized as he was saying it. “They must have been pretty nasty.”

“Not anymore than the average pirate. It was strange, really, how they got us by surprise.” Holdsworth thought for a second, then shrugged. “It’s in the past now. Here in the present, it’s time for you to learn how to tie up and let down a sail properly.”

“Uh, right now?”

“No time better!”

* * *

 

There was, in fact, news of the  _ Wonderland  _ nearly everywhere in Faerûn. It was by unfortunate coincidence and a strange chance of fate that the one place that should have been worrying about it the most was far too busy to think of pirates at all.

In Neverwinter, as in most other places, autumn was approaching. This meant that there was a general scramble on the part of the populace to begin the preparations for the annual harvest festival, which shone in the near future as a beacon of temporary respite from politics, worry, and frustration. As the weather grew steadily chillier, anticipation only grew.

Within the castle, Magnus was  still so swamped with work that he realized that the harvest festival was set to happen only the day before it was set to begin.  _ He  _ thought this was an easily forgivable offense; over the past few years he’d rarely been in cities, and often been far to the east or south of Neverwinter. As the biggest city in Faerûn, no place else had harvest festival’s like Neverwinter’s. Julia, however, was determined to tease him about it for as long as possible.

“It’s not like it happens every year and people come from way on the outskirts to participate,” Julia said offhandedly.

“If you keep making fun of me I’m not going to get you any maple candy,” Magnus said. “You’re going to have to buy it yourself. Is that what you want, Julia?”

Julia only laughed. “Oh, look, they’re selling masks!” She tugged Magnus over to the stall. “There’s an informal little masquerade ball in the pavilion at the end of the day, you know.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Mm, maybe. What do you think of this one?” Julia held up a purple half-mask with ribbons falling from one corner.

“It’s cute. What are the ribbons supposed to do?”

“Look nice?” Julia suggested. “You pick one, too. We should match.”

“This is gonna be like the time you said we should get matching tattoos,” Magnus told her, looking over the racks of masks. 

“One, you’re wildly exaggerating, and two, the tattoo incident didn’t turn out  _ that  _ bad. I still think we should have gotten them done.”

“Yeah, but if we do it  _ now  _ you’ll suggest an ankle one or something and get your prosthetic painted instead of an actual tattoo.”

“Nah, I’d get you to carve something on it.”

Magnus paused thoughtfully. “I could give you an ankle duck,” he offered. Julia snorted so hard she bent in half and nearly dropped the mask. 

“Forget about the tattoos and pick a mask, doofus.”

* * *

 

As dusk fell, lanterns and torch-posts were lit, casting a warm light over the lawn and the milling people. People began to gather on the pavilion in the center of the festival, where off to the side a group of musicians were setting up their instruments. The pavilion in truth was nothing more than a large, unoccupied stretch of browning grass marked by a circle of  fenceposts at regular intervals, which had at the top of each an orange cloth tied. Throughout the day people would buy ribbons and small scarfs and tie them lower on the posts, making a wish for each one tied. By the time the musicians had gotten there, the wood of the posts was barely visible, and the pavilion looked festive indeed. 

Magnus, in a green half-mask patterned around the edges with roses, turned around when somebody shouted his name. It took a moment for him to notice Merle in the crowd, even with the dwarf waving his arms back and forth.

“You’re back!” Magnus said delightedly. “I thought you went to be with your family!”

“Not for good,” Merle scoffed shoving between a human and a shortish half-orc to approach Magnus. “Just to help get them settled again. Anyway, I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go but here. How goes the politicking?”

“Sucky,” Magnus said. “You came at a good time, though! Want a mask?”

Merle peered up at Magnus’s. “Yeah, sure, why not!”

“I think the mask guy is that way.” Magnus pointed vaguely back towards the line of stalls. A chilly breeze made the torchlight flicker and the leaves in the trees shiver, making a pleasingly seasonal rattling, whispery noise. “Make it fast, man, it’s almost time for dancing.”

“Eh.” Merle shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Shouldn’t you be with Julia, then?”

“Oh yeah!” Magnus glanced around the crowd, but Julia didn’t pop out at him. “Uh, see ya!”

Merle headed off towards the mask stall as Magnus strode off purposefully. It was more crowded than it had been when Magnus and Julia were there, with a few parents and far more children perusing the stock. He had to walk carefully to avoid knocking anyone over.

“Do you have anything with maybe some leaves on it?” Merle asked once he made it to the counter. 

“I’ll see what I can do.” The human man behind the counter gave him a curious glance. “You new in town?”

“Sorta,” Merle said. “I used to work for the old Lord Sterling, y’know. Maybe I’ll get my old job back.” 

The man scoffed. “Good luck with that. The new Lord isn’t interested in much outside his castle.”

“What makes you say that?” Merle asked, taken aback. Magnus had seemed to be in a good mood - he’d assumed things were going well. 

“We may have a Lord again, but he’s not too fussed about changing things for us.” The man shrugged. “Dunno why anyone thought it would be any different. What d’you think of this one?” He proffered a red mask with a small cloth rose fixed to one corner.

“Not quite what I was thinking of,” Merle said. “I’m sure this is just an adjustment phase - with Lord Sterling, I mean.”

“If you say so,” the man scoffed. “Go ahead and look around if you like.”

“Thanks. And if you know anybody who needs a miracle man-” Merle winked. “Just send ‘em my way.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Just lettin’ you know.”

“Please just get a mask or leave.”

“Okay, okay. Touchy,” Merle muttered to himself. Things in Neverwinter were not as he’d expected.

* * *

 

Julia was sitting off to the side on a huge, gnarled tree root when Magnus popped out of the crowd. “There you are!”

“Here I am,” she said, smiling. The eyeholes in the purple mask threw some of that part of her face into shadow, making her eyes glitter mysteriously with reflected torchlight - or so it seemed to Magnus. Julia had to squint to guard against smoke wafting off the nearest torch. “What is it?”

“It’s almost time for dancing!” 

“Oh.” Julia’s smile dimmed. “I don’t know, Magnus.”

“It’ll be fun!”

“It’s not that simple,” she said, looking down and tugging at a loose thread in her tunic. “Prosthetics don’t lend themselves well to complicated movement.”

“Ohhh.” Understanding sparked in Magnus’s eyes. “Oh, right.” He sat down on the ground next to her. Back out under the torchlight, the impromptu band was playing the beginning of a reel, and people were converging in a circle on the grass. The masked figures lent the scene a fantastical look, like they were witnessing a gathering of plainly-dressed fairies. “We can wait for a slow one, then.”

“We’ll be here until midnight, then,” Julia told him, one eye on the dancers. Despite the growing chill as the light left the sky, there were plenty of people out and about in more summery clothing; light skirts and airy tunics with barely a vest over them. 

“I don’t mind.” Magnus grinned at her.

“Well,  _ I  _ might go inside before then, is all I’m saying.” 

“Aw, but it’s the harvest festival!”

“And I’ll toast to that, but I’ll take a good night’s sleep when I can get it.” Julia kicked him gently. “You should too.”

“It’s so fun though.”

“Then go dance now!” Julia rolled her eyes, and caught sight of a familiar face. “Hey, Davenport!” She called out over Magnus’s protests. “Go find Magnus someone to dance with.”

“You may have to wait for the next one before you’ll be able to find a partner,” Davenport said, pausing and glancing between the two of them. “Enjoying your evening so far?”

“I think my mask answers that for you.” Julia kicked Magnus again, still gently. “Go on. Go have fun!”

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Magnus said reproachfully.

“Mag _ nus.” _

“I’ll keep you company,” Davenport volunteered. “I’m not much of a dancer to dwarves, and nobody else around here is the right size.” 

“If you’re sure-” Magnus began.

“Go! Have fun!”

“Okay, okay!”

Davenport perched on a similarly enormous tree root next to her as Magnus gleefully made his way onto the fringes of the pavilion. 

“‘Not much of a dancer to dwarves’, huh?” Julia questioned, glancing over at Davenport curiously. 

“Gnomes and dwarves prefer very different styles of dance,” Davenport said. “Dwarves can get a bit violent about it. Have you ever seen one of their folk dances? Everyone is legally mandated to carry a sword.”

“Huh,” Julia said thoughtfully. “Sounds cool.”

“You only say that because you’re not at head height with them.”

“That’s fair.” Julia scratched under her mask. The ribbons were beginning to itch. “How goes your night?”

“Well enough,” Davenport said. “Better than trying to explain to Sterling why he should care about what people think of him.”

“Oh, stop there, I don’t even want to  _ think  _ about politics tonight.”

Davenport cracked a smile. “Also fair. But we’ve been so swept up in it I’m not sure either of us will have anything else to talk about.”

“We’ll think of something.” Julia crossed her legs. “Overall it’s not going nearly as badly as it could have.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Davenport said, “but I’ll toast to that. As long as nobody tries too hard to interfere, it might actually turn out well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment, please!


	3. The Dread Pirate Roberts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh MAN has it been a while! I've been in college for a couple months now guys, so other stories attracting my attention plus catching up on Critical Role plus school means I banged most of this out in the last 24 hours. But now it's here! And there's plot!
> 
> I kept trying to find some good mood music for this chapter, but eventually I just gave up and found an ambient noise generator. u gotta know when to pick ur battles.

_ G, _

__ _ I hope you’ve read at least some of the journal at this point, because I might have more to send you. Believe it or not, I found  _ _ another _ _ one! About some of the same people, it looks like. This one’s entirely dictated, and then there’s a surplus copy of the same story in third person. Who  _ _ was _ _ this lady? Might send you this new one later.  _

_                                                                                                                                                                                                                         -J _

* * *

 

Rockport was full of trains, so it was easy to find one heading in the direction of Neverwinter. The track didn’t go all the way; the final stop was only as far north as the southern end of the Felicity Wilds. Carey and Killian agreed that it would still be speedier than trying to walk the whole way.

The train, when they boarded, was rather empty. There was an elf, a couple of humans, and a halfling on board; that was all, aside from the two of them. Carey received a few sidelong looks, but nobody made an attempt to speak with them.

“Friendly,” Killian muttered. “I say we just stay in our room the whole time.”

“Sounds good to me,” Carey said. Their room was small, and there were two cramped beds, but there was a window where she could watch the landscape pass just as well as she could from a seat in the passenger car.

“What are we gonna do once we get to Neverwinter?” Killian asked, closing the door behind her as Carey sat down. “I feel like we should have, y’know, a plan.”

“There’s not much to do,  _ or  _ say,” Carey pointed out. 

“A plan would help.” Killian crossed her arms stubbornly. “If not for Neverwinter, at least for getting through the Felicity Wilds.”

“I guess.” Carey leaned back against the wall. “It wasn’t so bad going south.”

“Somehow I doubt we’ll be as lucky on the way back up.” Killian grimaced. “At worst, we’ll run into a chimera or something.”

“Okay, let’s not get into worst-case-scenarios just yet. We’ve barely left the city.” The train’s rattling grew echoey as they passed over a river, the arched bridge keeping well above the water. Carey leaned closer to the window to watch the rushing water. “How badly can things go on the train?”

* * *

 

In hindsight? Bad thing to say. Really, really inadvisable. Carey had heard often a saying that went, ‘Don’t tempt fate or the gods; their attention is easily bought and their amusement comes at your expense’. She reflected on it in a distracted way as she stabbed the elvish man in the back.

The train had traveled fast; mountains slowly gained height in the distance, and only a few hours after they’d boarded they had crossed over another river, cut far deeper into the ground than the stream that wound its way into Rockport from the east. That much of their trip had gone relatively without incident, as they’d mostly stayed in their room.

So of course, as soon as she and Killian went to investigate the dining car, they were ambushed.

The elf was wearing the uniform of the train attendants, but it was rumpled and missing a nametag. Carey suspected it was stolen. He was fast, too - he’d gotten the jump on Killian when she’d opened the door to move between cars, and they’d grappled furiously until Killian threw him off and nearly out a window. Carey had caught a glimpse of one of the other passengers peeking through the door, and then shutting it hurriedly. A lock clicked faintly.

“I don’t think we’re going to get any help from anyone else here!” Carey yelled as she kicked the elf back towards Killian. 

“I hate people sometimes!” Killian yelled back, grabbing the elf in a tight headlock. He scrabbled at her forearm, gasping, and raised his wand to cast a trio of magic missiles at Carey. She dove to the floor as Killian roared with rage. One of the missiles scraped across her upper arm; luckily it wasn’t a very high-level spell. 

“Oh, fuck you!” Enraged, Killian twisted the elf’s arm, making him shout in pain. “Why the fuck are you here?” The elf, still struggling for air, didn’t answer. The phrasing of Killian’s question made Carey frown.

“Do you  _ know  _ him?” Carey demanded.

“He tried to ambush me when I was looking for Brian, thought I’d fucking killed him-” Killian broke off with a curse as the elf jabbed his wand into her throat, making her lose her grip. He wriggled out from under her arm and leaped away. 

“You’re not that good, orc,” the elf said breathlessly, massaging his throat and glaring at the two of them. 

“Don’t be fucking rude,” Carey growled, unsheathing her daggers. 

“Who ordered you to do this, Jenkins?” Killian’s hands were in tight fists. “I’m not complaining about the opportunity to fuck you up again, but you’re not  _ that  _ stupid.”

“I don’t see why that’s any of your business,” Jenkins sneered. 

“You’re still working for Brian, aren’t you?”

Jenkins only laughed at that. “You’re behind on the times! Brian’s dead. Suffice to say, I can’t let you get to Neverwinter.”

That was when Carey stabbed him in the back.

Jenkins made a choked noise. Carey hissed in delight at doing some damage. She missed the way his hand tightened around his wand. 

A wave of deafening, thunderous force threw both Carey and Killian back. Killian dented the door into their compartment, cracking the glass. Carey skidded down the hall, claws tearing up the carpet. She just barely avoided toppling to the ground.

As Killian hauled herself back up to her feet, Jenkins threw open a different door. The noise of the train’s machinery was magnified abruptly. The door swung back and forth from the force of the wind coming in from outside.

“This is where you get off!” Jenkins could not have sounded more smug if he’d tried.

“Like  _ hell,”  _ Killian said, and lunged for him.

Carey raced towards the two as they tussled. Jenkins was far smaller than Killian, but she didn’t like Killian’s odds against magic. Carey dove into their compartment, then popped out and said, “Killian!”

Killian turned around right as Carey tossed her crossbow over to her.

Jenkins tried to flee as Killian let go of him to catch it. Carey flung another dagger at him. It caught him on the leg, making him stumble. Killian loaded a bolt into the crossbow with an ominous  _ thunk. _

“I think I’ll see what the militia thinks of you in Neverwinter,” Carey said, grinning as she advanced on Jenkins. She only wanted her dagger back, but she was sure she could think of something else to do while she was close. The blade gleamed as she snatched it up. “I don’t like your chances with them, buddy, how ‘bout you?”

Jenkins lunged towards her and tackled her off the train.

It was so out of the blue Carey barely had time to contest his strength roll, much less get a higher one. The two of them went flying out the door and onto the ground on the side of the tracks. 

Carey heard a wordless shout that faded as the train rushed past. She shoved Jenkins off her and rolled to her feet. The moving train exerted an almost magnetic effect, and she had to fight to keep her feet and not fall towards it, or under the wheels.

“You asshole,” she spat, and leapt at Jenkins.

Jenkins managed to roll out of the way of the first assault. He scrambled to his feet, looking hunted. Evidently it had not occurred to him that tackling her off the train would result in them being by the side of the tracks together, and him with few places to hide.

“Who do you work for?” Carey demanded. She could feel electricity sparking in the back of her throat. It always happened when she got angry, and made her sneeze if she wasn’t careful. 

Jenkins didn’t answer. Instead he fled, sprinting suddenly towards a distant mesa that rose tall on the horizon. Carey darted after him.

After only a few feet, Jenkins cried out in pain and surprise, and staggered. A dark metal bolt had lodged itself in his shoulder. Carey turned to see Killian standing next to the tracks with a murderous expression, reloading her crossbow. 

“That’s for throwing my girlfriend off a train, jackass,” she said. “And  _ this  _ one’s for-”

Jenkins did not wait to find out. He threw up his good arm, the hand of which held his wand, and the air thickened around them into a soup of fog.

Carey followed the sound of Killian swearing until she could make out her girlfriend’s hulking shape in the cloudy mass. Killian turned sharply when Carey tapped her on the arm, then sighed.

“He’s going to be long gone,” Carey said. “The train’s not an option, either.” The noise of it moving had faded into the distance; even as Carey spoke, it vanished entirely.

“Then we’re going to hunt him down and get some answers.” Killian was tight-lipped as she hefted her crossbow. “You leave anything important on the train?”

“I didn’t bring much with me in the first place. I’ve got everything I need.” They’d brought a small, shared bag of a change of clothes and toothbrushes and such, which Killian did not have with her. Carey assumed it was still in their compartment. “We’ll find that stuff later.”

“Right.” Killian snapped a bolt into place with a metallic shift of machinery. “Let’s go.”

It didn’t take them long to find the edge of the fog cloud; they walked forward across the flat grassland, and after about twenty feet it tapered off. To the north lay the high mesa, to the east a distant forest. Behind them, the fog and the train track lay.

“He was heading towards that mesa earlier,” Carey said. “I don’t know why, but he would have gone in that direction.”

Killian nodded to herself, thoughtfully. “We crossed a river earlier,” she said. “I know it goes this way, and north next to the mesa a little ways off. Let’s follow the river, and go from there. I’m not letting this asshole get away a second time.”

* * *

 

Candlekeep was a tiny port town, or at least tiny as far as port towns went; though Rockport constantly expounded on the benefits of trains, most of the coastal cities’ trade was still done by ship, as it was speedier than a land route and the merchants less likely to encounter monsters in the sea. As such, piracy remained a profitable business; though there were fewer than there had been in the golden age of piracy, when the original Roberts had first risen to such dubious fame. 

Lup had sent out Merrick and Antonia, with Rowan volunteering to accompany them, to find some new hires on the grounds that they were the most charismatic of the crew. They would remain in Candlekeep for a few days - enough time to add a respectable amount of people to the crew - then continue south, taking the widest pass into the Moonshae Isles. Various other members were deputized to other jobs; Dante went out in search of fresh provisions, while Hudson took Barry below as help with the chickens they kept onboard. Much of piracy, Barry was discovering, was devoted to keeping the crew healthy and finding something to occupy their time while out at sea. Very little time, if any, was spent fighting and looting. The sea seemed a vast and empty place once one was out on it; some days Barry was sure they’d sailed past the end of the world and into the elemental plane of water, so flat and endless was the blue expanse. 

Taako seemed bothered by none such philosophical thoughts. He had taken to piracy like a duck to water, always up in his lookout’s position or attending to some other chore far above the deck. In his free time or at night he would come into the cabin and talk to Lup for hours at a time, often kicking Barry out if the latter happened to be there. The occasions where all three of them shared each other’s company were most enjoyable to Barry: they reminded him of the farm, before all this had happened, and he luxuriated in being allowed into the twins’ confidence. 

Lup presided over everything from her cabin, conversations or orders alike; a queen ruling from a comfortable bed. In the lantern-lit, late night hours where it was just the three of them, she became something closer to home, more like the Lup he remembered. They would tell outrageous stories and laugh, and Barry could feel himself slowly fitting into place in this new life of Lup’s.

When the lights went down and Taako had left, Barry would fall asleep, and so he never noticed the way Lup would lie awake.

It was very difficult, to sleep in a bed when that was the same place nearly every waking hour was spent. Lup would stare at the ceiling, or out the window, and think of all the things she would do once she was herself again. Or once she was stronger, at least; like it or not, this was her now. It was a temporary setback, that was all. 

Oddly, she never got angry during the night. She had been furiously angry at first, at Sterling’s manor, and sometimes she would become immensely frustrated with herself; but at night, everything seemed too still and calm for that. And Barry was always there, breathing evenly at her side. She didn’t want to wake him up.

Unbeknownst to Taako and Barry, it was not her recent resurrection that tired her out, but these bouts of insomnia. Lup sometimes looked forward to them as a reprieve from a tiring day; other times she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes and pretended she was asleep, and at sunrise dragged herself out of bed and into her chair whether her legs wanted to cooperate or not.

Such a night as the latter one had occurred the night before they docked in Candlekeep. It was, therefore, a short-tempered and exhausted Lup who waited in her cabin to examine and interview any potential hires, several copies of a sailor’s charter piled on her desk for people to sign.

Barry caught glimpses of some of the people that were brought onboard. A group of about five halflings and gnomes talked, quick and melodic in a language he didn’t recognize, on the docks for a good ten minutes before climbing up onto the deck and being directed towards Lup’s cabin. People turned up periodically in the nervous way people who were unsure about their directions would; it was a mix of mostly humans with a couple of other species thrown in. Barry spotted a youngish orc boy and a couple of dwarves, but only briefly.

He guessed, given how everyone who arrived that day signed a charter with the  _ Revenge  _ soon after, that Lup could not afford to be picky about who they hired. But it worked in their favor; the crew of the  _ Revenge  _ went from a meager fifteen to a still small but far more reasonable thirty-four, and they were sailing off by that evening.

If it was possible, life in general on the  _ Revenge  _ grew louder and more boisterous. Meals were quite an experience with thirty-four at the table; and everything else similarly became both louder, more enjoyable, and easier. With a little less for each person to do, free time opened up in front of everyone, allowing conversation to flourish and, slowly, friendship.

Maybe a  _ little  _ too much conversation, though.

“‘Sup, Barold,” Taako said, as Barry climbed up to the top of the mainmast to escape the press and chatter of other people. “You get sick of my sister’s company?”

“No, just thought I’d talk to you.” Barry tried to disguise how he was clinging to the mast. “What do you think of all these new guys?”

“Less work for Taako, so win-win, seems like.” Taako glanced at him with a wry grin. “Why, you getting bullied?”

“No,” Barry said flatly. “You realize I’m a grown man, right?”

“Not for an elf,” Taako said airily. “I’ll be honest, though, that guy John’s a jerk. Have you ever listened to him talk?”

“I try not to.” Barry had suffered through about three minutes of a speech on the meaninglessness of life before somebody else had distracted John and allowed Barry to escape back into Lup’s cabin. “It just seems like a  _ lot  _ of people.”

“Supposedly in its heyday this ship had a crew of a hundred and fifty.”

Barry whistled. “The ship’s big, but not that big!” 

“It’s got a lot of cannons, homie. There’s a lot of shit for a lot of people to do.” Taako laughed. “Also, while you’re up here, you better be willing to help me look at things if you’re gonna distract me by talking.”

“Sounds fair to me.” Barry glanced around. Land was a distant green-brown smudge in the east, and a smaller smudge in a westish direction. “Is it strange that there aren’t a lot of other ships about?”

“The sea’s a big place. Everyone’s buckling down for harvest, anyway. The most trade gets done in the dead of winter and early summer.” Taako shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll run into somebody eventually. We’re gonna be spending a lot of money on food.”

Barry squinted at the fainter smudge. “Maybe we’ll run into somebody in the Isles.”

“We’d better. I’m getting bored as shit.” 

Barry gave him a sidelong look; Taako seemed a little too eager to get to the looting and attacking bits of piracy. But he kept his thoughts to himself, and his eyes on the horizon.

Lookout-ing, however, was not Barry’s forte. He saw nothing, while Taako needled him for not making out some small detail or another like a bird flying past them a hundred feet away. He was relieved to be called down for dinner, but he hadn’t gotten past the little platform (called a ‘top’) halfway down the mainmast before Taako shouted in excitement. 

“There’s a ship! To the south!”

The mood of the crew leaped to new heights. Barry, caught unawares in the sudden scramble to change their course, squinted into the dim sunset night to try and see what Taako had seen. 

There was a dim shape, black against the spreading stain of yellow that was the sunset. The wind was not what it could have been, but the sails still were caught in a breeze at least, and the  _ Revenge  _ drew slowly closer. The chatter of the crew on the deck drifted up to Barry, snatches of jeers and excited guesses at what they might find on the other ship. Barry missed the creak of the door that signaled Lup’s exit from her cabin. 

“Something’s not right,” Barry called up to Taako.

“What makes you say that?” Taako’s face was invisible, backlit as it was as he peered down at Barry.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. And that ship’s not moving.” Barry couldn’t put his finger on it, but the shape of the other ship was pinging some kind of instinctual warning system. He didn’t like the look of it.

As the  _ Revenge  _ drew closer, he began to make out where the mizzenmast had splintered into two pieces, and the tattered holes in the sails. 

The noise of the crew’s talk dwindled to nothing as the  _ Revenge  _ came within sight of the other ship. The setting sun cast a stark red light on the empty deck as it creaked faintly, illuminating the cannonball-sized dents in the wood. The rigging hung limp, and in some places frayed or torn in two. 

“Well, shit,” Taako murmured. Barry barely caught the words. “Someone else got here first.”

“Hudson, go across,” Holdsworth said, her voice drifting faintly up to where Barry stood. “Take a few people and see if there’s anything left.”

Hudson glanced around at the assembled crew. He took a hesitant step forward, and then someone cried out.

“Look at the sail!”

It was barely visible - but the one undamaged sail had scorch marks marring the white cloth. A black  _ W _ confronted Barry as he stared at the ship.

“The  _ Wonderland, _ ” Barry whispered to himself. Similar murmurs were running through those assembled below, and several were backing away from the side closest to the ruined ship. There was still no sign of any crew other than that of the  _ Revenge.  _ The ship, its name unreadable on the ruined bow, floated silent and empty.

The wind took Barry by surprise. It came suddenly, filling the sails with cool air and carrying the  _ Revenge  _ quickly away from the wreck. There was magic in it; it prickled like faint needles and gave him goosebumps. Looking down, Barry caught one or two people lowering wands. 

He turned to watch the wreck shrink into the distance, and when it became too difficult to see, he descended to the deck.

Mutters ghosted around him as he passed among the crew, mostly disparaging and all relating to the  _ Wonderland _ . Lup was scowling into the distance as Barry ascended to the poop deck. 

“What arrogant bastards,” she spat out. “They can’t have known we were coming - they just wanted to brag that they got to this one first.” 

“Lup-”

“What kind of dicks leave a ravaged ship floating like that? At least sink the goddamn thing.”

“Lup-”

_ “What,  _ Barry?”

“Where’s your crutch?” Barry asked, a grin beginning to spread across his face. 

Lup looked down. With both hands on the wheel, none were available to hold the crutches which she had left behind in her room instead of taking with her. 

“Oh,” she said, looking back up at Barry. She was beginning to grin, too. “I didn’t notice.” 

“That easy, huh?” 

“When you’re me? Hell fuckin’ yeah!” Exuberant, Lup threw her arms around him, only stumbling a little. “Just you wait, it’ll be like nothing at all happened in a day or two.”

Grinning into her shoulder, Barry held her waist tightly. The mutters of the crew no longer reached his ears, and he took no notice of the attention the two of them were getting. “I expected nothing less.”

What did the  _ Wonderland  _ matter, when he had Lup?

* * *

 

In the time it had taken for the  _ Revenge  _ to flee the strange wreck and enter the interior channels of the Moonshae Isles, Carey and Killian had traveled far. They had skirted the tall mesa, following the river as it wound northeast. They never saw Jenkins, only traces of his passage - abandoned camps and old footprints in mud, that sort of thing. Evidently he too was sticking close to the only source of water in the area. 

It was a long trek and a hard one; but Killian, who often went on long missions that required enduring just such situations, was well-suited to the chase. Carey bore it without complaining (much) for Killian’s sake, and to spare her own sense of pride. 

They left the forest behind them slowly, and later the mesa as well. The river which had led them unfailingly northward grew steadily wider and wilder, until they reached its source and it vanished underground. Water gushed out from a misshapen rock wall and sprayed up in misty white clouds, but the river failed to produce anything further upstream, or indeed any upstream at all.

“Well,” Killian sighed, “I wish we had something more than just the one waterskin.” She’d happened to have kept hers on her, and subsequently left the train with it, but one waterskin had only been bearable to share between two when they had a steady source of refills. 

“I think I may know where we’re going,” Carey said.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Jenkins is maybe following the river, but the river heads straight north towards Goldcliff around this stretch.” 

“What’s in Goldcliff that Jenkins wants?” Killian frowned down at the frothing water. 

“Dunno,” Carey said, “but it’s lucky for us. We’ll get in and call up Hurley and the rest and get him arrested, no problem.”

“I doubt it’ll be as easy as all that,” Killian said with a wry twist to her mouth. “Let’s get there first, and then start planning.” 

“You’re such a pessimist. Which way do we go?”

Killian glanced around, then down at where the river ended again. “North,” she said. “We still have the sun, and the stars. I know where Goldcliff is; and anyway, Jenkins isn’t as subtle a traveler as he probably thinks he is.” The heeled footprints in the mud on the riverbed, which they had followed to the river’s end, only proved her point. “Can you still go on today?”

“Of course,” Carey said. “We’re in this together.”

Killian smiled at her, and hefted her crossbow. “Then let’s get going.”

* * *

Within the Moonshae Isles, the waters were a little more crowded. Lup ordered that the flag be taken down lest they were accosted by the local militia, which the crew obeyed, grumbling the whole while. They had left the trophy - or warning - of a wreck behind a day ago, and nobody’s attitude had improved. Barry could tell that the crew, especially the new hires, were getting antsy to do  _ something.  _ Sailing aimlessly around was boring, and sometimes it got plain unbearable.

Lup must have noticed, because the day before they reached the location where supposedly one of the previous Dread Pirate Robertses had retired, Barry emerged from belowdecks late in the day to find several barrels had been brought up, and Lup was overseeing the breaking open of them. 

“What’s going on?” Barry asked, raising a hand to shield against the piercing light of the sun, which was nearing the horizon and at the perfect angle to blind the unwary. 

“I’m sick of being complained at and being bored,” Lup said, as Dante pried open the top of a cask. “We’re having a party.”

“On the ship?”

“You got a better idea? Ship parties are the best.” Lup stood up, with a smirky sort of grin which she tended to sport whenever her legs worked properly, and walked over to stand by him, even though he was plenty close enough to have a conversation with. “You know, apparently that Gerald kid we picked up in Candlekeep is handy with a guitar.”

“Is he?” Barry was beginning to suspect that the casks held something other than water, from the way people were eagerly congregating around them and leaving their jobs unfinished. 

“Oh yeah. Knows all sorts of songs.”

“Are you,” Barry said, “by any chance, implying that one of us might be inviting the other to a dance?”

Lup’s grin was blinding. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

 

In Lup’s favor, the Gerald kid  _ was  _ good with a guitar, which was produced from who-knew-where. He picked an easy, rhythmic tune, which Lup could dance to without too much trouble. Any crewmembers which weren’t already there had shown up before more than a minute had passed, and Robbie and his new assistant Petrilda appeared with armfuls of cups to fill with the stuff from the cask. Barry thought several people might have been already a little tipsy, judging from the way they lagged behind when they attempted to sing along. 

Taako was listening intently, criticizing the alcohol to anyone who would listen, and laughing every time Barry fumbled a step. A couple other dancers stumbled out eventually, and several someones produced a pipe and a lute to join in with Gerald’s nervous playing. 

Lup claimed sore feet after only one song, pulling Barry over to the side where everyone was sitting on various crates or just the deck. The pipe-player, who went by Skelly, immediately struck up a more lively tune, and several of the humans brightened and hurried to find partners. 

Sabine handed Barry a drink, as dancing lights were conjured to swirl among the dancers and give them light enough to see by so that nobody tripped or fell into the sea. Klarg tried to dance too, but he was terribly clumsy, and nobody was tall enough to make a decent partner for him. A couple of the new halfling hires tried, amusingly, to stand on top of one another to match him, but dancing was much more difficult when somebody was sitting on your shoulders, as it turned out. Still, it was entertaining. 

At some point after Barry was getting pleasantly tipsy, Taako decided that magic should be included, and started transmuting the rum into ale and various other, more colorful drinks. Rowan quickly excused himself after that, as the navigator was one who  _ definitely  _ needed to remain sober, but everyone else cheerfully committed themselves to the task of testing out Taako’s transmutation prowess. Robbie broke out a few experimental mixtures that very few dared to try, singing the whole while of the ‘fall of the magister’ and the fate of the High Moor. It was some old song Barry didn’t recognize, and Robbie was exceptionally terrible at singing it while stinking drunk.

The music got worse as the night went on, but nobody sober enough to stand upright minded as long as they could still dance. Lup dragged Barry out one more time for a dance that mostly involved clinging together and giggling while they spun, giving up on any attempt at following the steps. Barry impulsively dipped Lup, making her cling to him even tighter in surprise and laugh. 

Antonia danced with anybody, or alone if she was given the space to really bust a move. Boyland insisted on at least one stately waltz, though at that point nobody was in any shape to pull it off. Marie and Holdsworth promenaded with a complicated duet of steps up and down the deck, and even John came out of whatever shadow he’d been sulking in to have a drink or two, though he regaled whoever was close enough (and drunk enough to be leery of trying to walk away) with his thoughts on how dancing was pointless because it only bestowed  _ temporary  _ happiness and blah, blah, blah. Barry wished he’d get over himself, at least for the one night. Even Maarvey, who was reclusive at best and a grumpy asshole at worst, had gone for a couple of dances with Merrick and was deep enough in his cups to be smiling. 

Nobody onboard had a violin, but Gerald tried admirably to play a reel with unsteady fingers, and Antonia showered him in compliments for his efforts. Robbie started passing around some of his potions, and there were some poorly-thought-out attempts at cool magic tricks, and Barry woke up with his face plastered to the pillow with drool, Lup sprawled half on top of him. A cool breeze blew through the open door, and the sound of birds reached his ears. The wind carried not just the smell of salt, but a hint of something...greener.

Curious, Barry extricated himself from the bed and tiptoed to the door. It was open slightly, letting the breeze in. Outside the wind tugged harder at his clothes, and the cries of the birds circling above were loud enough that they caught his attention just as much as the sight of the island looming out of the sea ahead of them. 

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Antonia commented as she passed, holding an enormous coil of rope and smiling. Rowan, two steps behind her, slapped Barry on the shoulder in lieu of a greeting.

“Is this it?” Barry asked. “This is where we were heading?”

“You’d have to check with the Captain, but it’s where the directions she gave me lead,” Rowan said. Barry looked back to the island they were passing along the shore of. It was covered in gentle hills, and sloped gently down to meet the sea on every side. There looked to be houses scattered about it, and clustered near one shore, but they were being left behind.

“We’re not stopping?”

“Not for supplies, no. Can’t risk it. It’s one thing to dock in Candlekeep, but here it’s too small and not loose enough with the law. They’d have the guard over in a second, and we’d be easy to find.” Rowan shrugged. “We’ll just have to rob somebody on the way out and take water as well as treasure. We’re not doing as bad as I’d expected, but we’ve got more mouths to feed.”

“Right.” Barry kept watching the hills. There was something strange about them. “Where are we going, then?”

“Where the captain says.” Rowan opened his mouth to continue, but abruptly flushed and said, “You should wake her up. We’ll be there soon,” and then hurried away.

Barry wondered what he had been going to say.

* * *

 

They dropped anchor far offshore, and Lup took only Barry and Taako with her in the landing boat, despite Holdsworth’s protests. Barry soaked his jeans to the knees getting out to pull the boat onto the pebbly beach, and Taako floated himself out with a luxurious levitation spell to avoid getting so much as a drop on his shoes. He stepped into the wet sand without a care, though, tilting the brim of his hat back to observe their surroundings as Barry helped Lup out.

“I can’t tell if this place is dreary or if it’s just because summer’s ending,” he said aloud. “Barry, you got an opinion?”

“Something seems a little weird about the place,” Barry said, fishing the crutch Lup had pretended not to notice they’d brought along out of the bottom of the boat. “I dunno if I would call it ‘dreary’, though. Where to?” He addressed the question to Lup.

Uncharacteristically, Lup looked unsure. It was at odds with the semi-professional, very captain-like outfit she’d donned, resplendent in her red coat (the charred sleeve repaired) and tri-corner hat. The red feather plume bobbed in the sea breeze.

“I know he lives here,” she said. “I don’t know specifically  _ where,  _ though. It can’t be anywhere too inconvenient - he’d be old by now.”

“The last Dread Pirate Roberts, old already?” Taako questioned, arching an eyebrow.

“Not the last,” Lup said. “The  _ first. _ ” And with that, she strode off, towards where the sand changed to tall grass and a skinny dirt path vanished into the waving fronds.

“The first?” Barry hurried to catch up, and got an elbow in the side for his trouble as Taako cut in front of him. “Why? What’s the point of all this?”

“I need to know what happened to Lucas.” Lup didn’t turn around. “I don’t know where he went, but Roberts might.”

“Why Lucas?” Taako’s long, easy strides had brought him level with Lup in a few steps. Barry hung back, because there wasn’t really room on the path for two abreast, much less three. “Isn’t he retired, too? Also, tell me if I’m wrong, but Lucas  _ is  _ the guy right before you who only retired like two years ago.”

“One,” Lup said. “And something’s wrong. When I was - captured-” The word came out haltingly. “-that Count guy said some things. He said Lucas had made that machine, that he’d done something to Maureen to make him build it.”

“Who’s Maureen?” Barry asked.

“Lucas’s mother. She was Roberts before him, and after this Roberts. I don’t know if she’s hurt, or-” Lup slowed for a moment, then plowed on through the grass without finishing her sentence. 

“I’m sure Roberts will know where they are,” Barry said when it became clear that neither of the twins were going to say anything. Lup said nothing. He glanced back the way they had came, where the landing boat was sitting somewhat forlornly on the beach, and out at sea the  _ Revenge _ sat on glittering waves, her red paint and white sails nearly as bright as the reflected sunlight. He didn’t know when he’d begun looking to a pirate ship for comfort, but it reassured him that she was still there, waiting for their return. The odd feeling he’d gotten from the hills had reminded him uncomfortably of the moment just before they’d realized the true nature of the wreck from a few days ago.

As they climbed higher and trekked further inland, the path wound its way through a gentle valley that went deeper and deeper the further they went. Grassy, moss-covered natural walls pressed the three of them into single-file, and the path itself became littered with leaves from trees far above. Barry could hear water running somewhere, but the noise of the waves had long ago faded away.

“I feel like we’re walking into something we’re not going to be able to control,” Taako muttered under his breath after they’d been walking for long enough that Lup had to be cajoled into using the crutch again. Barry wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear it, but he patted Taako on the shoulder anyway.

“You and Lup together are out of control anyway,” he reminded Taako. “You’ll live.”

“You say the nicest things,” Taako retorted, but it wasn’t as sarcastic as it could have been.

The trees started to grow more frequent, and roots broke through the sides of the green (beginning to go brown with the advent of fall) walls that surrounded them. They tangled with each other where enough of them were pressed together, blocking the sunlight and creating dappled bars of light that made Taako and Lup look strange. Barry felt as though he’d stepped into some kind of other world, and was about to suggest that they check elsewhere when the canyon-esque valley walls abruptly opened up, and the path deposited them into a large, round bowl of a dell. A stream fell into it from on top of one of the hill’s they’d passed (or gone under, more like), and the resulting puddle of a pond was surprisingly dark and deep. 

There didn’t seem to be anything there but grass and trees clustered near the edges. There were also no other ways out. 

“Well, we’re lost,” Taako announced. Irritated, Lup threw the crutch to the side and approached the center of the dell.

“We’re  _ not, _ ” she said defiantly. “There’s got to be something-”

She stopped dead in her tracks. If Barry didn’t know better, he’d say she’d run into something.

Lup put her hand out in front of her, moving it as if feeling something; then she started using both hands. Beginning to get the gist of what was going on, Barry picked up the crutch to brandish and approached. Taako was already there, exclaiming when his hand met what should have been solid air.

“Whoa,” Taako said, impressed.

“I  _ told  _ you,” Lup said smugly, her hand closing around something. She turned it, and opened the door. 

Cool air spilled out from a hallway that didn’t seem to belong to any house in sight. One-half of a doorway opened, admitting them inside. Lup stepped inside unhesitatingly; Taako and Barry followed.

The hallway looked like it belonged in a mansion. A wide staircase greeted them, rising out of a wide hall decorated with statues on pedestals and branching off into balconies leading in two different directions and out of sight. The whole place was paneled with dark wood, and rugs were off to the side. There did not seem to be many windows, though it was lit inside by magically-ignited torch brackets which were a little too far apart to be called conveniently placed. Everything exuded an air of old, perhaps decaying wealth.

The whole place was fair and pleasantly cool, and still as a tomb.

Quietly, Barry took his wand out.

“Hello?” Lup called out. There was a squeak like hurried shoes moving across smooth tile, and a door at the far end opened, which had previously been unnoticeable, so similar was it to the walls. A woman peered out, looking startled.

“Who are you?” She demanded sharply. There was something frazzled about her demeanor, and the sharpness was not entirely unkind.

“Visitors,” Lup replied, taking her hat off. “I’m looking for Roberts. He must be here.”

At the name ‘Roberts’, the woman’s expression went through a series of rapid changes, and her mouth thinned into a line. She came out and closed the door behind her, looking over the three of them thoroughly. Barry assumed she was taking in the rough clothing, the dampness, and the faint smell of salt air they’d brought with them.

“You’re pirates?” She asked. Lup shrugged.

“We sailed here,” she replied evasively. “I worked for an associate of Roberts’. I need to speak to him - Roberts, I mean.”

“You can’t,” the woman said flatly. Lup bristled, at that. 

“And why not? It’s important! If he knew I was here-”

“He won’t,” the woman interrupted. She was looking at Lup with a strange kind of pity. “I believe that it’s important, miss, but you should have come just a day or two sooner. Roberts was a very old man, and he died just last night.”

“Died?” Lup repeated, hollowly. She spent a moment staring at the woman, stunned. “But-”

“It’s very sad, but there’s no ‘buts’ about it,” the woman said. Barry stepped forward, squeezing past Taako to put an arm around Lup.

“We’re sorry to have bothered you,” he said. “We didn’t realize that this, uh, was a possibility, I guess. But we were seeking some information that we really do need. Is there any way we might be able to find what we’re looking for?”

The woman gave him a searching look, frowning. “Only way I can think of is if you went through his journals, and I’m not exactly inclined to let you.”

“It’s  _ very  _ important,” Barry said, risking pressing a little further. “And if anyone else was supposed to have them - if he gave them away in his will, or anything, we won’t take them out of the house.”

The woman glanced over Lup and Taako again, then back at Barry. “I guess it’s not like he’s paying me any more,” she said at length. “He keeps -  _ kept  _ them in his study. I’ll show you.”

“Thank you,” Barry said gratefully. “It means a lot. What’s your name?”

“Della,” the woman said. “Come on. I haven’t got all day, and I’ve already been here longer than I wanted to be.”

The second floor of the house appeared to be deserted as well. Barry learned, when he asked, that all the other staff had fled when Roberts died, not caring enough to stay when they weren’t being paid for it, and only Della had bothered to stick around to give him a proper burial.

“‘Course, that was when I assumed I’d have helpers,” Della said, sighing. She pushed the door at the very end of the hall they’d gone down open. “It’s all in here. Nobody’s touched anything since he died, unless somebody snuck in in the middle of the night.” She stood aside to allow them through the door.

“You go ahead,” Barry told the twins. “I’ll be up when I can.”

“Where are you going?” Lup paused on the threshold to look at him quizzically.

“I’m going to help with the burial,” Barry said. “Someone should.”

* * *

 

Digging six feet into the ground was hard work, but there was no time limit, and the autumn sun didn’t beat down too harshly. Della, who Barry had noticed appeared to be getting on in age, sat to the side next to the surprisingly short body, wrapped in a sheet. She had made no protests against him offering his aid, and seemed content to let him do the digging. Barry didn’t mind; he’d dug wells on the farm, from time to time, and though that had been long ago the work was not entirely unfamiliar.

When he’d finished, Barry climbed out, taking Della’s offered hand. They lowered the body down, irreverently fast, but they  _ were  _ only two people with a couple of sturdy cloth straps. Once Roberts was at the bottom, Della took up the shovel.

“I can do this part,” she said. “You sit down and have a rest for a moment.” Gratefully, Barry did so, as Della began knocking dirt back in.

“He was human, wasn’t he?” Barry asked after a few minutes. “I realize I don’t actually know.”

“He was,” Della said. “Self-aggrandizing old coot. He never said where he’d gotten all his gold, but most of us figured it out eventually.” 

“Yeah, I heard he’d retired to lie on his laurels and riches for the rest of his life.”

“Sounds about right.”

“How did you get here?”

Della shrugged. “A lot of us came from the town. Most every settlement in the Isles is pretty poor, so it wasn’t hard for him to find people who would come and work for him if he paid them enough. And I’ll be honest, whatever else I think about him, he paid us what our work was worth.”

“Did you not like him?” Barry asked curiously. Della presented a mixed view of Roberts’ personality. “Is that why everyone else left?”

“None of us signed up to take care of an old man,” Della said.

“But only you stayed to bury him.”

“I may not have liked him, especially at the end, but nobody deserves to lie in their bed and decay or get picked apart by birds.” Della punctuated her words with a hard shove of the shovel, and dumping a good quantity of dirt into the grave. 

“That’s kind of you.”

“It’s common decency.”

“I don’t think so,” Barry said. “Maybe it  _ should  _ be, but a lot of people stop caring as much once someone’s dead.”

Della swept another pile of dirt into the grave. It landed with a damp, muffled thump. “That’s why I’m the only one still here.”

* * *

 

Roberts did not get a headstone, though Barry had offered to see if he couldn’t carve a letter or two into a small rock. Della left him in the dim main hall while she went to fetch Taako and Lup. Barry was glad it didn’t take long; he had the oddest feeling that some of the statues were looking at him.

The three of them left Della in the invisible house, with her promises that she could find her own way to the town and she’d be fine, yes, thank you. Lup was quiet the whole time, with a look on her face that suggested gears were moving very deep inside her head, and a complicated train of thought was underway. Barry left her to it, linking his hand with hers as they delved back into the dark, narrow canyon of a path. Soon enough the trees overhead had withdrawn again, and the sound of the sea once again was audible in the distance. The landing boat remained where they had left it, sitting slightly deeper in the sand. 

Surprisingly, Taako helped Barry push the boat off, though Lup climbed straight inside. The sun wasn’t much higher in the sky, but it still gleamed off the water as Barry turned the boat around and began rowing back towards the  _ Revenge _ .

“That was easier than I thought it’d be,” Taako said. He was sitting perched in the bow, and therefore behind Barry; this meant that Barry felt the prickle of magic against his back without seeing what was actually happening. He glanced over his shoulder, and discovered that Taako was suddenly wearing a long green coat with a long row of buttons, tasseled epaulettes, and embroidered cuffs. The pockets were bulging with small books that had been stuffed inside.

“Did you  _ steal  _ that?” Barry demanded.

“Roberts wasn’t using it,” Taako sniffed without turning around, popping the collar. It brushed his earlobes at its full height. The cloth looked rich and soft, somewhat frayed and faded with age. “And I doubt it would’ve been Della’s style, let’s be honest. I’m the pirate here.”

“We’re all pirates,” Lup reminded Taako. 

“You’ve got a cool coat already, and Barold’s too much of a nerd for a cool coat.”

“You didn’t take more than one, did you?” Barry asked, suddenly paranoid.

“How many coats do you think I can wear at once?” Taako scoffed. “Minor Illusion only goes so far, you know that.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you.” Barry sighed, turning back around. “You took the journals too, didn’t you?”

“Only some.” Taako sounded pleased with himself, far more so than he had any right to be. “There was too much to go through, and we only barely got to the bits that talked about Lucas.”

It would be too much work to go back and return the stuff; besides, Della  _ wouldn’t  _ use any of it. And if Barry was being honest, he did want to see what Roberts’ journals were like. 

The boat was hoisted back up onto the Revenge with a fair amount of fanfare; nobody had anything better to do than wait and see what the three of them had come back with. Taako’s new coat was received well, and Dante said it was a very fine remnant of Golden Age piracy fashion. The notebooks, Taako excused with a quip about magpies and another anecdote of their journey to swiftly change the subject. 

“So this man you were looking for,” Holdsworth said, as she helped Barry tie the cover back over the landing boat, “Who you won’t tell me about, for whatever reason - he wasn’t there?”   


Barry shook his head. “He was too old - he was dead before we got there. Bad coincidence.”

“And a bad omen,” Holdsworth muttered. “Well, no matter. Captain!” She shouted up to where Lup was retreating to her room. “Where to next?”

Lup paused, and turned around slowly, one hand gripping the railing.

“Wherever the most ships are,” she said. “I leave it up to all of you. It’s high time we got around to actually pillaging somebody.”

“Hear, hear!” Rowan said loudly. A murmur of similar agreements swept across the deck, while Lup turned again and the door of her room closed solidly behind her.

“She could sound a little more excited,” Holdsworth said under her breath, viciously tugging a knot tighter. It sounded as if she hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Barry held his tongue, and wondered if he’d be expected to pillage too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment, please! idk how long i'm gonna be able to keep up the letters at the beginning of each chapter, but here's hoping reader response gives me some of that sweet sweet inspiration.


End file.
